


Professor Snape's Study Group for Gifted Individuals

by acmparker



Series: You're a Parent, Severus [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, F/M, Harry Potter Has a Pet Snake, Harry Potter was raised by Severus Snape and Remus Lupin, Lilly Potter and Severus Snape have a Blood Bond, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Severitus | Severus Snape is Harry Potter's Parent, Severus Snape Adopts Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 39,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24928420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acmparker/pseuds/acmparker
Summary: Severus Snape had formed a Blood Bond with Lily Evans when they were at Hogwarts. This means that when Lily dies there is another whose blood relationship with her is recognized by the blood ward Dumbledore places on Harry. Severus Snape decides to check on how the Dursleys are treating Harry, about a month after Lily's death, and isn't pleased with what he finds. With the help of Remus Lupin, Severus has been caring for Harry ever since.With Voldemort having returned and the Ministry refusing to listen to him, Dumbledore has reformed the Order of the Phoenix. Severus and Remus must continue to keep Harry's true living situation from Dumbledore while keeping their son safe from Voldemort.
Relationships: Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley, Cedric Diggory & Harry Potter, Cho Chang/Cedric Diggory, Harry Potter & Severus Snape, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom & Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom & Harry Potter, Remus Lupin & Harry Potter, Remus Lupin & Severus Snape, Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks, Sirius Black & Harry Potter, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin, Sirius Black & Severus Snape
Series: You're a Parent, Severus [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1198003
Comments: 165
Kudos: 341





	1. Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Here is Book 5 at last. Now that we are done with the Emergency Remote Learning I should be able to go back to a posting schedule of one chapter a week.

Harry crouched behind the grave marker, Sirius by his side, and concentrated on maintaining the shield he had cast. He felt exhaustion pulling at him, but Moony had almost reached them, he only needed to hold on a little longer. Harry pulled on the last of his energy to reinforce the shield only to watch a streak of green light pass through his spell as if it wasn’t there and strike Moony, who collapsed at his feet. As Harry stared in horror at Moony’s lifeless body he heard a cold high voice.

“Find the boy. Bring him to me.”

Suddenly, Death Eaters were dragging Harry out from behind the grave marker that he had been sheltering behind, his invisibility cloak gone. Sirius leapt to his defense only to be cut down by another flash of green light. Harry was bound to a gravestone again and as he struggled against the ropes holding him, Voldemort loomed over him.

“Don’t worry, Harry Potter, you will have your chance to face me soon, but first I have a traitor to deal with.”

Voldemort turned away from Harry to watch one of his Death Eaters who was being dragged forward by two others. The wizard’s mask was dislodged when he was thrown to the ground at Voldemort’s feet, revealing the pale face of Severus Snape.

“Did you really think that you would be able to get away with this betrayal, Severus,” Voldemort hissed as he raised his wand-

“Harry Potter, wake up, you is having a bad dream.”

Harry started awake and stared blankly at Dobby’s worried face for a moment before looking around his bedroom. He was at home, Moony, Sirius, and Dad were safe, it was all just a dream. He sat up and rubbed his face, trying to shake the images of the graveyard from his mind.

“Thank you, Dobby,” Harry said with a wan smile.

“Dobby is happy to be helping, Harry Potter. Dobby will be getting Harry’s Moony for him. Harry’s Moony will be helping Harry Potter feel better so that he can be getting more sleep.” 

Dobby disappeared with a pop. Harry fell back onto his pillow and tried not to think about the nightmare that Dobby had woken him up from. As he lay there, Godric slithered out of his Vivarium and made his way onto the bed. When Moony came into the bedroom he found Harry stroking his snake, who lay coiled upon his chest, as they hissed to each other.

“Are you all right, Harry? Dobby said that you had a bad dream,” Moony asked as he moved the desk chair to sit beside Harry’s bed.

“Moony!” Harry sat up suddenly, dislodging Godric who hissed his displeasure before settling down again on Harry’s lap. “You’re ok! I mean, I know you’re ok, it was just a dream but it seemed so real …” Harry leaned forward and flung his arms around Moony as soon as he was seated, burying his face in Moony’s shoulder. “I dreamed that we were in the graveyard and you and Sirius were killed by the Death Eaters,” he continued in a muffled voice, “and I was captured again, and Riddle had figured out that Dad was a spy …”

Moony rubbed Harry’s back. “Ssh, it’s ok, I’m here, your Dad’s sleeping soundly in his own room, you’ll see him in the morning, and Sirius will be here for lunch as usual. We’re safe.”

Harry drew back embarrassed, “I know, it was just a dream. It … it just seemed so real … I know it’s stupid to get so upset over a bad dream. It’s not like I’m a little kid ...”

“It’s not stupid, Harry,” Remus said gently. “You went through something traumatic and it’s going to be a while before you feel safe again. Just give it some time and keep seeing the Mind Healer. And don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it, even if it’s in the middle of the night. Now do you want to get up for a while, maybe have some tea or something, or do you think you can get back to sleep.”

Harry settled himself back onto his pillow and yawned, “I think I can get to sleep again.” He hesitated and then mumbled, “Would you … do you mind staying until I fall asleep again?”

“Of course not,” said Remus, and Harry drifted off again with Godric a comforting weight draped over him and Moony nearby.

Harry didn’t revisit the graveyards in his dreams again that night, instead, he found himself walking down a long, dark corridor that seemed to stretch on forever until it suddenly ended in a locked door. Harry knew that there was something important behind that door, something that he desperately wanted but he woke up before he could remember what it was. Godric hissed sleepily as Harry carefully moved the snake off of himself before getting dressed for the day. Harry rubbed his forehead and then stopped as he realized his scar was prickling uncomfortably and had been since he got up. Almost as soon as he noticed the pain it faded again. Frowning to himself, Harry tried to remember what he had been dreaming about when he woke up as he headed down to the kitchen.

“Good Morning, Harry,” Remus said as he brought the bacon he had just fried to the table. “How did you sleep? I hope that there were no more nightmares at least.”

Harry sat down and started serving himself from the food laid out before him. “I didn’t have any more nightmares but I had an odd dream and when I woke up my scar was hurting again.”

Severus frowned, “Your scar was hurting? Did you do your Occlumency exercises before you went to sleep?”

Harry nodded, “I did, and my shields feel intact.”

Severus’s wand appeared in his hand and he pointed it at Harry, staring him in the eyes. ”Legilimens!”

Harry felt his dad pushing at his mental shields, testing them for any flaws that might have let Voldemort through, before withdrawing again. Severus sat back with a thoughtful expression.

“You’re right. Your shields are intact, yet it seems that you are still eavesdropping on the Dark Lord’s thoughts somehow. What happened in your dream?”

Harry described the corridor he had found himself in and the locked door that prevented him from reaching his goal. Remus looked over at Severus.

“Well that confirms that we’re right about what Riddle’s been after,” he said. “He must be really obsessed if Harry’s been picking up on it.”

“What?” Harry demanded. “What is Riddle after?”

Severus and Remus exchanged a look.

“Dumbledore doesn’t want Harry to know,” Remus said but his tone of voice indicated that he didn’t think this was a serious consideration.

Severus snorted, “You know how well it went when I tried to keep Harry out of things in his first year at Hogwarts.” He turned to Harry, “The Dark Lord is after some information that he didn’t have before, and the Order is trying to keep it from him. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to tell you everything before Cedric gets here. Eat your breakfast before it gets cold and we’ll talk about it some more this afternoon when Sirius is here.”

Cedric soon arrived and helped himself to the last of the bacon, while the others finished their meal. After breakfast, Severus headed down to his lab grumbling about the number of potions he had to work on in between the usual summer replenishing of Hogwarts stores and Voldemort’s demands. Harry fetched his school books and Godric from his room and sat down at the kitchen table to work on his summer assignments, while Cedric and Moony played a game of chess and answered Harry’s questions whenever he needed help. Finally, Harry finished the essay he was working on and closed his books.

“I think I’m going to go for a walk,” Harry said as he stood up, picking up Godric who looped himself around Harry’s shoulders.

“Good timing,” said Cedric as his king surrendered to Remus’ forces. “I’ve had enough of losing to Professor Lupin today.”

“I’m not your Professor anymore, Cedric, you can call me Remus now,” Remus said.

“Sorry, Prof- I mean Remus,” said Cedric.

“You could call him Moony like my friends and I do,” Harry said with a grin from the doorway to the living room.

“I think I’ll stick to Remus,” said Cedric. “You know, Fred and George kept accidentally calling him that in class. The nickname made a lot more sense a few months into the year when we made the connection between the days when Professor Lupin was sick and the nights with a full moon.”

Remus looked startled. “You realized that I was a werewolf that early? Why didn’t you say anything?”

Cedric shrugged, “We had a house meeting to discuss it and the upper years taking N.E.W.T level classes with you made it clear that they wouldn’t stand for anyone doing anything that would risk us losing the first decent Defense Professor that we had had in years. Everyone in my year agreed with them, we had our O.W.Ls to think of, after all, so it was decided that Hufflepuff would keep your secret.”

“I hope we get a decent teacher this year. I would be pretty miserable to get another Lockhart for my O.W.L year.” Harry said from the living room. “Come on, Cedric, let's get going so we can be back in time for lunch.”

When they had left the house Harry asked, “Did you go to the last Order meeting?”

“Yeah,” said Cedric. “But I can’t tell you anything about it, Dumbledore’s orders.”

“I know,” Harry said. “It's just so frustrating ... all of you are busy doing stuff for the Order when you’re not guarding me and I’m not even allowed to know what’s going on. Even Ron and Hermione are at least staying at Headquarters even if they aren’t allowed into the meetings.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m not doing anything for the Order other than guarding you. The other members all insisted that I should finish school first,” Cedric informed Harry.

“That does make me feel better.” Harry looked down the street. “We’re almost to the park, it’s nice to have a green space to go to other than my backyard but I wish I had somewhere I could fly. I’m going to be so out of condition when we get back to Hogwarts.”

“From what I’ve heard about your first time on a broom I don’t think you need to worry about being out of condition, Harry,” Cedric said ruefully. 

“You did beat me the only time we played against each other,” Harry pointed out. “Although, I’m not planning to let that happen again.”

The two boys continued to talk about Quidditch and the upcoming school year as they wandered into the park and settled themselves in the grass. Harry was sprawled out on his stomach watching Godric slid through the grass hunting for unwary prey while Cedric leaned back against a nearby tree when their conversation was interrupted by a shriek from over by the swings.

“Look, Mummy, there’s a snake!”

Harry quickly gathered up Godric and sat up to watch a little girl come running across the grass towards him with her mother in pursuit.

“Is that your snake?” the girl asked when she reached Harry, her eyes shining with delight. “Can I pet him?”

Harry smiled at her and extended the arm that Godric had wrapped himself around, “As long as you’re gentle with him. His name’s Godric.”

“Hello, Godric, my name is Sally,” said the little girl as she carefully stroked Godric. “You’re beautiful and so soft.” She looked at Harry, her eyes wide. “I didn’t know that snakes were soft.”

“Sally, don’t bother the young man. You can’t just run away from me like that,” Sally’s mother scolded as she caught up with her errant daughter.

“But Mummy, he’s got a snake and he let me pet it,” protested Sally. “Did you know that snakes are soft? I want a snake just like Godric, he’s beautiful.”

“Maybe when you’re older,” Sally’s mother said, she looked down at Harry. “I’m sorry about Sally. I’m trying to teach her that it’s not polite to bother strangers but she’s never met anyone with a pet snake before.”

“That’s alright,” said Harry. “Godric is always happy to have an appreciative audience. It was nice to meet you, Sally, but Godric and I need to go home for lunch now.”

Once they were out of earshot of Sally and her mother, a puzzled Cedric said, “The Muggles didn’t seem surprised that you had a snake. Do Muggles really keep snakes as pets?”

“Yeah, Muggles keep all sorts of animals as pets,” said Harry. “Although, I’ve never heard of a Muggle with an owl.”

When they arrived back at 8 Hadon Gardens, Harry invited Cedric to join them for lunch but he had made plans to spend the afternoon with Cho, so after Sirius arrived Cedric said his goodbyes and left.


	2. The Prophecy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry learns of the prophecy.

Harry waited until they had finished lunch before he brought up that morning’s conversation again.

“So what is Riddle after?” he asked once the plates had been cleared from the table and set to washing themselves with a wave of Remus’ wand. “You promised you’d tell me after Cedric left.”

“You’re going to tell him?” said Sirius in surprise. “Dumbledore had made it clear that he didn’t want Harry to know about it.”

“Does it really look like I care what Dumbledore wants?” Severus asked sardonically, gesturing towards Harry.

Sirius looked at Harry, who hadn’t seen the Muggle relatives that Dumbledore had left him with since he was a baby and grinned. “No, of course, you don’t. Go ahead.”

“Thank you for your permission,” Severus said dryly before turning to Harry. “Before you were born the Dark Lord learned of a prophecy that predicted the birth of one who would have the power to defeat him … that prophecy was why he came after you ... he hoped to thwart it by killing you before you could grow to become a threat to him.”

“You mean there was a prophecy about me? Riddle tried to kill me and killed my parents because of some prophecy.” Harry demanded angrily. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you didn’t need to know,” Remus said gently. “We weren’t about to raise you with the idea that you were a child of prophecy, some sort of Chosen One. No child needs to bear that kind of burden.”

“But now the Dark Lord is back and he is looking to learn more about the prophecy,” said Severus. “The Dark Lord only knows the first few lines of the prophecy and he wants to hear the rest of it. That is what he has been preoccupied with and that is what you have seen in your dream.”

Harry frowned. “What does my dream have to do with the prophecy?”

“The corridor that you saw in your dream must be the one leading into the Department of Mysteries,” said Sirius. “the Hall of Prophecies, in the Department of Mysteries, is where the Ministry of Magic keeps recordings of all the prophecies ever made, and Dumbledore has had a member of the Order on guard in that corridor since the start of this summer. I would imagine that old Noseless is getting pretty frustrated with being unable to get past us if he wants that prophecy so badly.”

“What exactly did the prophecy say?” asked Harry.

“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies …” Severus quoted. “That’s all that I know, and all that the Dark Lord knows, of the prophecy. I believe that the only one who knows the whole of it is Albus Dumbledore.”

Harry slumped in his seat. “And Dumbledore doesn’t want me to know any of this,” he said bitterly. “Maybe I should be the one trying to break into the Hall of Prophecies to find out what it says.”

“That’s the last thing you should do,” Severus said sharply. “If the Dark Lord learned of your plans that could give him the opening he needs to strike at you as he failed to do in the graveyard. No prophecy is more important than keeping you safe.”

“I know,” said Harry. “It’s just frustrating to know that there’s this prophecy about me defeating Riddle and I’m apparently not allowed to know anything about it.”

“Remus and I will work on getting the full text of the prophecy from Dumbledore,” Sirius said. “As your magical guardians, we should know what this prophecy has to say about you, anyway.”

“It’s worth a try but I doubt that he will tell you,” said Severus. “Albus has a tendency to keep his cards close to his chest, even when dealing with his friends and allies. Still, I am sure that he means to tell Harry the full prophecy when he feels that Harry is ready.”

“And when will that be?” demanded Harry. “How often does Riddle have to come after me before Dumbledore stops treating me like a child and tells me what’s going on?”

“If you don’t want to be treated like a child then you must be careful not to act like one,” Severus said severely. “While we cannot do anything about what Albus chooses to tell us, we can do something about the connection between you and the Dark Lord. It is time to move on to the next stage of your Occlumency training.”

Harry frowned, “What next stage? I don’t think I can make my Occlumency shields any stronger than they already are.”

“And yet, they don’t seem to be keeping you from eavesdropping on the Dark Lord,” Severus pointed out. “When I started teaching you Occlumency I thought that learning the basic shield would be enough since it didn’t matter if the Dark Lord knew that you were keeping him out of your mind. Now that it’s evident that you aren’t able to block the connection that exists between you, I need to show you the method I use to ensure that the Dark Lord is unaware of my deception when I report to him what the Order wants him to hear. You need to learn how to control what an invader sees when they peer into your mind.”

Harry and Severus moved into the living room and Harry tried to organize his thoughts, and memories so that his dad would only see the memories that Harry meant for him to see when he used Legilimency to peer into Harry’s mind. Severus finally called a halt after about an hour as it became clear that Harry was too tired to continue. Yawning Harry wandered back into the kitchen where Remus was letting Sirius practice what he had been learning about Muggle stage makeup on him.

“What do you think?” Sirius asked as he carefully arranged a wig on Remus’s head.

“I think you need more practice,” said Severus dryly, as he passed through the kitchen and disappeared into his basement potions lab.

Sirius studied Remus’s face for a moment before pouting and helping Remus clean himself off again. 

“I still haven’t gotten the hang of the prosthetics,” he admitted with a sigh. “You should see the ones my teacher makes. At least my contouring is getting better.”

“The wig is a nice touch,” said Harry with a grin. “Moony looks good with red hair, he’d fit right in with the Weasleys.”

“That’s the idea,” said Sirius with a wink. “I figure once I’ve got it right, I’ll bring him to Headquarters and see if Molly and Arthur notice that they’ve gained another son.” Sirius nodded at the picture of Fred and George grinning up at them on the table. “I’m using Fred and George as my model.”

Remus snorted, “I’m sure they would appreciate the joke if you manage to make me look like them but I don’t think you’re going to be able to do it.”

“It’ll be brilliant if it works though, and it might come in handy someday, me being able to do this,” said Sirius, packing up his kit. “So, what do you want to do this afternoon, Harry?”

“I don’t know. Nothing that requires any thinking, that’s for sure. I think I broke my brain in between doing my summer homework this morning and Occlumency practice this afternoon.”

“Why don’t we-” Remus broke off at the sound of the doorbell. Sirius went to answer it, followed by Harry. The witch at the door had a pale, heart-shaped face and short, spiky hair that was currently a bright bubblegum pink.

“Wotcher, Sirius, Harry,” Tonks said brightly as she stepped into the house. “I had the day off so I thought I’d come by a little early and spend some time with my favourite cousin.”

“Sorry, Tonks, Harry and I were just heading out. Harry wanted to go for a ride on my motorcycle, now that I’ve got it back from Hagrid. Isn’t that right, Harry?” Sirius turned towards Harry and gave him a wink with his back to Tonks.

‘Yeah, that’s what we were doing,” stammered Harry confused but willing to go along with whatever Sirius was up to, especially if it meant a ride on his motorcycle, a motorcycle that Harry strongly suspected could fly.

“And were you planning to say anything to me or Severus before you left, Paddy?” Remus asked from the door to the kitchen.

“Of course I was,” declared Sirius. “Moony, I’m taking Harry for a ride on my motorcycle. I promise to keep my speed down, stay on the ground, and ensure that Harry wears his helmet at all times. I hope that you have no objections.” He winked at his friend. “And you can keep Tonks company while we’re gone.”

Remus looked at the young witch, who was still standing by the doorway.

“Hello, Tonks,” he said with an involuntary smile at the sight of her. “I guess you’re stuck with me until these two get back from their joy ride. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” she responded, drifting towards him.

“C’mon, Harry,” said Sirius gesturing to the door. “Our steed awaits.”

“What was that all about?” Harry asked as they descended the steps leading down to the street where Sirius had parked his motorcycle. “Not that I’m complaining mind you, it’s a wicked idea, but I definitely did not ask for a ride on your motorcycle. I didn’t even know you had one.”

“Just being a good cousin, and giving Tonks what she wants. You didn’t really think that she got here over an hour early for her shift on Harry Watch because she wanted to see me, did you?” Sirius smirked as he handed Harry the helmet he pulled out of the motorcycle’s sidecar. “And Remus didn’t seem to have any complaints about being left alone with Tonks either.”

Harry was silent as he climbed into the sidecar and put on the helmet. He thought about Remus’s smile when he saw Tonks, and how she hadn’t seemed at all put out by them leaving so quickly after she got there. Harry liked Tonks a lot, she was a lot of fun to hang out with, but he wasn’t sure how he felt about the idea of her and Moony being a thing. It would be kind of weird if they started going out, and what if they got married? Moony was kind of his dad, would that mean that Tonks would be his step-mom? Harry shook his head, there was no way that he could see Tonks as any sort of mother figure …

Harry was shaken out of his thoughts as Sirius started the motorcycle and they took off down the street. Godric let out a hiss of displeasure and quickly burrowed down into Harry’s shirt.

“This is almost as bad as when you’re flying. Why do you two-legs like going so fast?” he complained, his hissing barely audible through the air rushing past Harry’s ears.

“It’s fun,” Harry hissed back.

“It’s unnatural,” hissed Godric, heading farther down in Harry’s shirt to tuck himself into the teen's side while leaving his tail wrapped around Harry’s bicep to keep himself firmly anchored against the motion of the motorcycle.

Harry laughed and turned his attention to enjoying the ride and thinking about how to convince his dad and Moony to let them fly the next time Sirius took him out on his motorcycle. By the time Sirius pulled up outside the house in Hadon Gardens again, all thoughts about Moony and Tonks's potential romantic interest in each other had been blown away in the thrill of Harry’s first motorcycle ride.

Sirius pulled off his helmet and grinned at Harry, “So, how was it? Did you enjoy the ride?”

“It was bloody brilliant!” Harry exclaimed. “Godric didn’t like it though, he says going so fast is unnatural.”

Now that Harry had climbed out of the sidecar, the snake had crawled up out of his shirt and coiled himself around the teen’s neck again.

“I guess you’ll need to leave him behind next time we go for a ride then,” Sirius said as they climbed the stairs to the house.

“Next time, can we go flying?” Harry asked eagerly.

“Sure, I don’t see why not,” said Sirius, stepping into the house.

Remus looked up from the book that he had been discussing with Tonks. “You aren’t taking Harry flying on your motorcycle in the middle of London,” he said firmly. “We’re trying to avoid attracting attention.”

Sirius gave Remus his best look of innocence. “Who said anything about flying. I was just agreeing to take Harry out for another ride sometime.”

Remus looked unimpressed. “Right … I don’t have any problem with you taking Harry out again … as long as the motorcycle stays on the ground.”

“Alright, Moony,” Sirius said. “Sorry, Harry, no flying unless Moony or Sev says it’s ok.”

Harry shrugged, “That’s ok. Although, I hope that I get a chance to go flying at some point this summer.”

“I might be able to do something about that,” Sirius said thoughtfully. “As soon as Dumbledore decides to let you come to headquarters.”

Sirius made his goodbyes and left, still looking thoughtful and muttering about checking wards and the long term stability of wizard space. Remus put his book away and turned to Harry.

“Tonks has agreed to help me with your Dueling practice. Shall we head out into the backyard and see how you fare against a trained Auror?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What name should Remus use when Sirius succeeds in making him look like Fred and George's triplet? I'm having trouble coming up with a name that goes well with Fred and George that I like.


	3. Dementors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dementors arrive in Little Whinging.

As July passed Harry’s days were full. He worked on his summer assignments right after breakfast and then spent some time hanging out with Cedric, either in the park or the back yard. The two boys discussed Quidditch and swapped stories about the extra Defense training they were each undergoing that summer. Moody had decided to personally see to it that the younger members of the Order were ready for anything that Voldemort’s Death Eaters would throw at them, and Harry spent a couple of hours on Defense lessons and Dueling practice with Remus and Tonks most afternoons. When Severus had the time he would help out with Harry’s training, and on those days, Harry knew that he would be exhausted by the time they stopped for supper. Cedric and Harry had an ongoing debate about who was a harder taskmaster, Moody or Professor Snape.

On the days when his dad wasn’t working on the potions that the Dark Lord had demanded, Harry would spend some time helping him with the potions that were needed to restock the Hogwarts infirmary. Whenever Severus was working on the potions for the Dark Lord, however, he would spend that time with Sirius instead. Harry’s days always finished with an hour of Occlumency practice before bed, no matter what else had happened that day, while Bill played chess with Remus and quietly discussed Order business. He was pleased to discover that his new Occlumency exercises worked to reduce the number of nightmares he was having, as well as relieving the trapped feeling that he got from the recurring dream about the corridor and the locked door.

Harry’s birthday arrived with birthday cards and presents delivered by Owl from Ron, Hermione, and Neville. Neville’s present had been accompanied by a lengthy letter about his trip to Diagon Alley to get the new wand that his grandmother had given him for his birthday. Harry was happy to hear that his friend finally had a wand that was suited to him, but the mention of Diagon Alley was a reminder of how much he missed the magic of the Wizarding World, and how much he missed his friends.

“I’m sorry that you weren’t able to invite your friends to your birthday party, Harry,” said Remus sympathetically when he saw the expression on Harry’s face. “But it shouldn’t be much longer before we get the go-ahead to bring you to headquarters to see Ron and Hermione again. Sirius is definitely making enough of a fuss about wanting to have you there for the rest of the summer.”

Harry brightened, “Do you really think so? Hermione said something about seeing me soon in her card but I wasn’t sure if she really meant it or if she was just trying to make me feel better.”

“Of course you’re coming to my house soon!” exclaimed Sirius. “Dumbledore has been putting me off with talk about the blood ward needing to be reinforced by your stay here but he can’t use that as an excuse much longer, a month is more than enough time for that. You’ll be with Ron and Hermione again before you know it.”

Emily arrived just then and soon she and Harry were attempting to teach Cedric, Tonks, and Bill how to play a Muggle card game, while Sirius and Remus finished setting out the food for the party and Severus iced the cake. Harry focused on enjoying his birthday, and it wasn’t until he was preparing to do his Occlumency exercises that evening that he remembered that morning’s conversation. He fell asleep that night focusing on his memories of last summer's visit to the Burrow and the fun he had there with Ron and Hermione after the Quidditch World Cup.

Two days later was the hottest day of what had already been a particularly hot summer. Even Severus had agreed that it was really too hot for Harry’s usual activities and he and Harry had spent most of the day down in the magically cooled basement lab, working on potions for the Order. That evening Harry sat in the backyard, feeling very reluctant to go inside the hot house to try and sleep until he heard a commotion from inside. When he went in, Remus and Severus were no longer there and green flames were flickering in the fireplace.

“We just got a Floo call from Mrs. Figg. There are Dementors roaming around Little Whinging,” Bill informed Harry as the teen stared at the fire in surprise. “Professor Snape and Remus went to deal with them.”

“Why didn’t they call me? I could help, I know how to cast the Patronus Charm,” Harry protested, taking a step toward the fireplace.

Bill grabbed his arm. “You’re staying right here with me. Your dads know what they’re doing and the last thing we need is you using magic in a Muggle neighbourhood. That’s exactly what the Minister has been waiting to use to discredit you, and separate you from Dumbledore.”

Harry shook his arm free from Bill’s grasp and flopped down on the couch. “Alright! ... I get it,” he said impatiently. “I’m not allowed to do anything ... but I’m not going to bed until they get back.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” said Bill, joining Harry on the couch. “It shouldn’t take them very long, Mrs. Figg only saw two Dementors.”

Bill was right, it wasn’t long before Severus apparated back from Little Whinging.

“We drove off the Dementors,” he said as he stepped out of the fireplace. “Remus stayed with Mrs. Figg to deal with the Ministry. They’ve been watching the Floo networks and they’re bound to investigate any Floo activity in Little Whinging. Bill, you’d better let Dumbledore know what happened … remember that you were in Little Whinging keeping an eye on Harry when the Dementors showed up there.”

“Right,” said Bill, standing up from the couch. “The Dementors showed up while I was on duty and I drove them away. Then Remus arrived, having been called by Mrs. Figg when she saw the Dementors while on her way home from the store. I left Remus to guard Harry while I went to report to Professor Dumbledore. Were any Muggles hurt?”

Once Severus had assured him that no Muggles were hurt by the Dementors that he knew of, Bill headed out to the backyard. A sharp crack followed his exit from the house, as he disapparated to report to Dumbledore.

“Well, that was a much more eventful end to the day than I had expected,” commented Severus as he turned to Harry. “You’d better get to bed, after what just happened I expect that it won’t be long before Dumbledore will be wanting to bring you to Headquarters and you don’t want to be exhausted when you get to see Ron and Hermione again”

Harry brightened at this and promptly headed up the stairs to bed. That night Harry carefully hid the memories that he didn’t dare let Voldemort see, and brought forward his memories of Ron and Hermione to conceal them. He fell asleep remembering how hard they had worked to help him prepare for the final task, how Hermione had sacrificed her study time and how Ron had endured being stunned over and over again until Harry had finally felt confident in his ability to survive whatever the maze threw at him.

Severus had been right, the Dementors were the push that Dumbledore needed to finally have Harry brought to headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. Dumbledore called an emergency meeting of the Order that Wednesday evening to call for volunteers to guard Harry on the journey from Little Whinging to London. This left Severus and Remus with the problem of how to prevent the rest of the Order from realizing that Harry wasn’t living in Little Whinging after all.

“Moody is in charge of organizing the trip, along with the guard detail,” Remus told Harry at lunch the next day. “Enough people volunteered that he’s split them into two teams, the advance guard in charge of actually picking you up from your relative’s house and a reserve that is to take over from the advance guard if anything disastrous happens.”

“Is that likely?” asked Harry, nervously.

“Of course not,” said Severus. “Moody is just being paranoid, as usual. Not that that’s a bad thing when he’s in charge of keeping you safe.”

Remus continued, “Tonks managed to get the job of luring your relative’s from the house, so we don’t have to worry about the Order finding out that way, but I’m not sure how we’re going to hide the fact that you don’t actually live in Little Whinging from the advance guard when they pick you up.”

“That’s no problem,” said Sirius with a grin. “I’ll just need to get Harry to my place before they leave, that’s all.”

The others stared at him.

“What are you babbling about, Black,” Severus said.

“It’s simple, Remus has the note from Dumbledore with the location of the Headquarters on it, good job getting that from Dumbledore before he gave it to Moody, by the way …”

Remus shrugged, “I figured that if I was in charge of giving the location to Harry that would give us a little more flexibility. I’m just glad that Dumbledore accepted my reasoning that, as the one who was closest to Harry, it made sense for me to be in charge of giving it to him.”

“It probably helped that most of the Order still feels guilty for not trusting you before,” said Sirius before continuing with his plan. “So, I’ll get the note from Remus and come and fetch Harry on my motorcycle, tomorrow. We’ll just need to get to headquarters before Moody and the others leave for Little Whinging. They’ll believe that I decided to go and fetch him from Surrey myself and convinced Remus to go along with it. I’m sure Moody will be unhappy with me but he can’t do anything about it once Harry’s already there.”

Severus nodded, “That should work. The Dark Lord is just as ignorant of Harry’s true location as the majority of the Order, so even if there is a leak within the Order, he will not be looking for Harry to be moved at a different time and location than the Order’s plans indicate.”

“Has there been any indication of a mole within the Order this time around?” asked Remus.

“No,” said Severus. “But if the Dark Lord does manage to suborn another member of the Order, I would be the last to know. He would enjoy having the means to verify my information without my knowledge.” Severus thought for a moment before continuing, “I can use this plan of yours … I will report the Order’s plans to collect Harry to the Dark Lord and then I will be able to present him with the memory of your arrival at headquarters. That should be enough to convince him that it was not my doing that the information I gave him was useless. The more that I’m able to give him without truly hurting the Order the better.”

Sirius’ plan went without a hitch. When Tonks arrived for her shift guarding Harry, Sirius didn’t leave as he usually did. At 7:30 Sirius shrunk Harry’s trunk and put it in his pocket, while Harry coaxed Godric into his portable habitat, Harry had already sent Hedwig off to Ron and Hermione with a letter. Harry then fastened on the helmet that Sirius handed him and covered himself with the invisibility cloak. Sirius opened the door and then turned back for a last word with Tonks while Harry slipped outside.

“We should be at headquarters in plenty of time to catch the others before we leave, but in case we don’t make it-” Sirius said.

Tonks interrupted him, “I’ll apparate to Little Whinging after you leave so I can catch them there if you don’t make it on time. I know the plan, Sirius.”

“Of course, I’ll let you know when we make it to my place. See you later, Tonks.”

Sirius headed down to his bike and whispered,” You there, Harry?” carefully not looking at the sidecar where his godson should be waiting for him.

“I’m buckled in and ready to go,” Harry responded quietly.

Now that he was sure that Harry was where he was supposed to be, Sirius started his motorcycle and headed off through the streets of London. Despite driving with much more regard for the traffic laws than he usually showed, Sirius was not about to be pulled over by the Muggle police when he had Harry with him, especially when his godson was currently invisible, they made it to Grimmauld Place in good time. Sirius pulled up onto the pavement in front of number eleven and killed the engine. Harry looked around him in bewilderment.

“Where’s the house?” he said looking over at number thirteen which was right next to the house they were standing in front of.

“Think about Dumbledore’s note,” said Sirius with a grin.

Harry thought about it, the note had read,  _ The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London  _ and when Harry got to the part about number twelve, Grimmauld Place, a door appeared out of nowhere between numbers eleven and thirteen. The door was followed swiftly by the walls and windows of a house which pushed the houses on either side of it out of the way as it appeared. As soon as the house was finished expanding, Sirius led Harry up the worn stone steps towards the freshly painted red door. Harry studied the polished silver door knocker, which was in the shape of a twisted serpent, as Sirius tapped the door with his wand. Harry heard many loud, metallic clicks, and what sounded like the clatter of a chain, and then the door creaked open and Sirius ushered him inside.

“Welcome to my ancestral home,” Sirius said with a flourish of his hand as Harry pulled off his invisibility cloak and looked around.


	4. 12 Grimmauld Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Sirius arrive at 12 Grimmauld Place

Harry looked around the long, brightly lit hallway he was standing in. It ran the length of the house, dominated by a grand staircase that led to the upper floors. A serpent-shaped chandelier hanging from the high ceiling gleamed above them, looking as if it had been recently cleaned and polished. The sparse furniture in the hall, consisting of a small table holding a serpent-shaped candelabra and a large umbrella stand and matching coat rack covered in cloaks, looked like they could have come straight from the Gryffindor common room, as did the red and gold carpet covering the floor. On one side of the hallway, several portraits in gilt frames lined the cream coloured wall.

“Those are all the Black portraits that I could stand to leave hanging,” Sirius said, seeing Harry looking at them. He nodded at an empty frame near them. “That’s Phineas Nigellus, my great-great-grandfather, he was Hogwarts most hated headmaster and seems to spend most of his time in his portrait in Dumbledore’s office.”

Sirius wandered down the hall and stopped in front of two portraits that held pride of place at the centre of the wall.

“This is my Uncle Alphard, I found his portrait in the attic, my mother must have had Kreacher stick it there when she burned him off of the family tree.”

The man in the portrait nodded to Harry with a smile.

“Why would your mother do something like that?” Harry asked, staring at the portrait.

“Because I didn’t agree with leaving Sirius destitute, no matter how much he had offended my sister,” Alphard said. “Walburga must have been upset by me leaving her wayward son a tidy bit of gold in my will.”

Sirius then indicated a portrait of a young man who looked remarkably like Sirius himself. “And this is Regulus.”

Regulus inclined his head stiffly. “Hello, Harry. Welcome to the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black. When you have the time I would be delighted to fill you in on your duties as the heir since I am sure that my brother will have failed to do so,” he said with a pointed look at Sirius.

Sirius rolled his eyes, “Like any of that means anything anymore, Reg. There's not going to be anything left of the Black family after I’m gone, and good riddance to bad rubbish as far as I’m concerned.”

Regulus’s face tightened and he drew himself up as he took on a lecturing tone, “Sirius, you can’t just throw out centuries of tradition just because you don’t like them-”

“I can if they’re not worth keeping,” Sirius interrupted him. “We don’t have time for this. Come on, Harry. Let’s go let the others know you’re here before they leave to fetch you.”

Sirius crossed the hall and quietly opened one side of the large double door opposite Regulus’ portrait. When Harry peered past Sirius he saw several witches and wizards sitting around a large table, in the centre of a formal dining room, listening to Moody as he went over his plan for extracting Harry from the Dursleys.

“Lupin, Shacklebolt, Doge, Diggle, Vance, and Jones, you’re in the advance guard with me. We’ll be the ones going to Little Whinging to pick up Potter. The rest of you will be in the rear guard, you will be standing by ready to take over guarding the boy if the rest of us are killed-”

Sirius stepped into the dining room. “It sounds like you’re expecting trouble, Mad-Eye. I guess it’s a good thing that you won’t have to go and pick Harry up after all,” he said with a grin.

“What have you gone and done this time, Black,” snapped Moody, scowling at him.

“Just saved you a trip, that’s all,” Sirius said with a grin as he stepped to the side and motioned Harry to come through the door.

Harry stood awkwardly beside Sirius as the Order members gaped at him in surprise. Remus recovered first and started to check his pockets before looking back at Sirius when he didn’t find what he was looking for.

“Paddy … you didn’t …” he said in a resigned voice.

“Of course I did, Moony,” responded Sirius. “I couldn’t bring Harry here if I didn’t have Dumbledore’s note. That reminds me, I’d better let Tonks know I have him. I wouldn’t want her to worry when the rest of you fail to show up.”

Sirius pulled out his wand and sent a Patronus off to alert Tonks that he and Harry had reached Grimmauld Place safely.

“How could you be so reckless, Black?” Mad-Eye roared in exasperation. “The number of things that could have gone wrong … What if the Death Eaters had been watching Little Whinging?”

“When has the mutt been anything other than reckless?” Severus sneered, from where he sat a little away from the others. “I would advise you to keep him on a tighter leash, Lupin, before he gets Potter killed.”

“I wasn’t being reckless!” exclaimed Sirius, plaintively. “I had Harry use James’s invisibility cloak for the trip, and we made it here all right didn’t we?” Sirius looked pointedly as Severus. “At least this way I could be sure that the Death Eaters wouldn’t know when Harry was going to be moved.” He turned back towards the door. “Come on, Harry. I’ll show you to your room so you can settle in before the meeting tonight. I’m sure you’re eager to see Ron and Hermione again.”

Harry followed his godfather back through the Entrance Hall and then up the staircase. Sirius gave Harry a brief rundown on what rooms were on each of the floors they passed, as they climbed to the fourth floor. When they got there Harry saw that, unlike the other floors, there were only two doors leading off of the landing. Sirius motioned to one of the doors, which had a sign on it reading Do not enter without the express permission of Regulus Arcturus Black.

“Kreacher hung my mother’s portrait up in there, I believe he’s set it up as a sort of shrine to the Black family, so I wouldn’t go in there if I were you. Death doesn’t seem to have improved her disposition.” Sirius then opened the other door. “And here’s your room. I fixed it up for you, but feel free to make any changes you want.”

Harry stepped into the room and looked around. It looked remarkably like one of the Gryffindor dorm rooms, complete with a four-poster bed hung with crimson curtains. There was a Gryffindor banner on the wall beside the window, and a picture of Lily watching baby Harry flying around on a toy broom hung beside the bed.

“It’s perfect,” Harry said with a grin. “It’ll just like being back at Hogwarts, except for the lack of snoring.”

“Well, if you miss Ron’s snoring I could move another bed into here for you and he can join you. It wouldn’t hurt to have a bedroom free for any Order members who might need to stay the night.”

“I’d like that,” Harry said. “There’s plenty of room in here.”

Sirius pulled out Harry’s trunk and resized it, placing it at the foot of his bed.

“I’ll go take care of that while you unpack, then."

Harry had just started unpacking, after letting Godric out of his travel case, when he heard someone running up the stairs. He turned at the sound of a shriek from the door that Sirius had left open behind him, only to have his vision obscured by a mop of bushy, brown hair as Hermione pulled him into a fierce hug.

"HARRY! You’re here! We weren’t expecting you until later! But Sirius just came into Ron’s room to move him up to your room, and said you were here! Ron will be up to see you soon, he’s just packing up his stuff! Oh, how are you? Have you been furious with us? I bet you have, I know our letters were useless - but we couldn’t tell you anything, Dumbledore made us swear we wouldn’t, oh, we’ve so much to tell you -”

“Let him breathe, Hermione,” said Ron, grinning as he came into the room carrying his trunk, Pigwidgeon perched on his head. He seemed to have grown several more inches during their month apart, making him taller and more gangly looking than ever.

Hermione, still beaming, let go of Harry, but before she could say another word there was a soft whooshing sound and Hedwig soared through the doorway and landed gently on Harry’s shoulder. Harry stroked her feathers as she clicked her beak and nibbled his ear affectionately. Godric hissed in displeasure at the sight of the owl enjoying Harry’s attention and stopped his exploration of the room to climb up Harry’s leg. Harry lifted his snake to his other shoulder and teased him about being jealous of Hedwig.

“I am not jealous of her,” protested Godric. “She can’t even talk to you like I can. I am just reminding her that your shoulders are my perch, not hers.”

“I have two shoulders you know, you can share,” Harry hissed firmly.

“Having a little trouble with your pets?” Sirius asked as he came into the room pulling a shrunken bed out of his pocket. With a tap of his wand the bed floated over to beside Harry’s and grew back to full size. Sirius then pulled out a wardrobe and placed it beside the bed. He frowned at them thoughtfully.

“Hmm… They don’t quite fit the decor in here,” Sirius said thoughtfully, raising his wand again. “Well, that’s easy enough to fix.”

Soon the new bed and wardrobe were identical to the ones that had already been in Harry’s room and the resemblance to a Gryffindor dorm room was even more pronounced. After Sirius left, Hermione frowned at Harry as he convinced Hedwig to leave his shoulder and returned to his unpacking.

“So what are you doing here so early? I didn’t think that they had even left yet to go and fetch you.”

“Sirius got Dumbledore’s note from Remus and brought me here on his motorcycle while the others were still listening to Moody talk about advance guards and constant vigilance and stuff.” Harry grinned, “You should have seen their faces when we walked in on them.”

“Harry, how could you?” Hermione said. “Do you know how dangerous that was? What if the Death Eaters had found out you were on your way here with only one guard?”

“I don’t know how they could have,” said Harry. “The only people who knew about the plan were Dad, Moony, Sirius, and Tonks and I had my invisibility cloak. It’s not likely that the Death Eaters were going to find me in London when they didn’t know where I was coming from, or where I was going, or what time Sirius was moving me. Especially when Dad had told Riddle about the Order’s plan to fetch me, so if they were going to try to snatch me they would have been watching Little Whinging.”

“Harry’s right, Hermione,” said Ron. “The only way to get him here more safely would have been to get one of the house-elves to pop him directly from one house to the other.”

“And we couldn’t do that because the ministry would have detected the apparition being used on me, even if they couldn’t tell where I was being moved to or from,” Harry pointed out. “They probably would have tried to use it to accuse me of underage magic if we had done that. After all, that’s what Dumbledore’s been afraid of happening, that’s why he’s got the Order guarding me.”

“I suppose that’s the guard duty they’ve been talking about during their meetings,” said Ron thoughtfully.

“You know what they’ve been going on during their meetings? I thought that you wouldn’t be allowed to participate because you’re underage,” said Harry in surprise.

Ron made a face. “We’re not, Mum won’t let us near the meetings, she says we’re too young, just like you thought, but Fred and George have invented Extendible Ears. They’re really useful.”

“Extendible - ?”

“Ears, yeah. Only we’ve had to stop using them lately because Mum found out and went berserk. Fred and George had to hide them all to stop Mum binning them. But we got a good bit of use out of them before she realized what was going on. We know some of the Order are following Death Eaters, keeping tabs on them, you know -”

“Some of them are working on recruiting more people to the Order -” said Hermione.

“ - and some of them are standing guard over something,” said Ron. “As I said, they are always talking about guard duty. That would be you, I suppose.”

“Actually, It isn’t me,” said Harry. “My guard detail was organized at the end of the school year and there wouldn’t be much to talk about at the meetings, after all nothing had happened with me until the Dementor attack. No, they’re guarding some sort of Prophecy about me and Riddle that’s hidden in the Department of Mysteries. Riddle’s really obsessed with it, I’ve been dreaming about the hallway leading to the Department of Mysteries all summer.”

“You’ve been dreaming about it … because Riddle had been obsessed with it?” Hermione asked hesitatingly.

Harry nodded, “Yeah, you know how I was getting the occasional glimpse of what Riddle was seeing last year? That’s how I knew about Crouch, right? Well, it turns out that I have some sort of connection with Riddle because of my scar, and Occlumency doesn’t seem to do anything to block it. Dad’s been teaching me a new method of organizing my memories so that if Riddle notices our connection he can’t use it to find out about Dad.”

“A new Occlumency method, can you teach it to me?” asked Hermione.

“Never mind that, Hermione,” Ron said, “Harry, you have a connection to Riddle through your scar! Why aren’t you freaking out?”

Harry shrugged, “Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe because Dad and Moony didn’t when they figured out what was going on. Anyway, Dad’s pretty happy with my Occlumency so I don’t think Riddle will be picking up any secrets from me, even if he does notice the connection.” Harry flopped down on his bed and looked over at Ron who had finally started unpacking his stuff from where he had hurriedly stuffed it in his trunk. “So what have you two been doing if they haven’t been letting you get involved with the Order?”

“Mostly trying not to get in the crossfire of Sirius’s prank war with Fred and George,” Hermione huffed.

“I think Mum’s about ready to murder the lot of them,” Ron added with a grin, “but she can’t do much about it when it’s Sirius’s house and his house-elves are always happy to clean up any mess.”

“Has she found out that Sirius is bankrolling their prank shop?” Harry asked.

“Nope, good thing too, otherwise you might be short one godfather, despite us being guests in his house.”


	5. The Order of the Phoenix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The members of the Order show up at Grimmauld Place for a meeting, but Harry's not allowed to attend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this chapter is late. After having nothing going on for most of the summer things suddenly got busy over the past two weeks.

Ron and Hermione told Harry about the pranks that Fred, George, and Sirius had played on each other since the Weasleys had moved into Grimmauld Place, while Ron finished unpacking his things.

“And if all that wasn’t enough, Sirius keeps dropping hints about how he’s working on a big prank that’s going to involve Fred and George somehow,” complained Hermione as they left Harry’s room and headed back down the stairs. “How can I focus on my summer assignments with that hanging over our heads, on top of trying to learn what we can about the Order’s - AARGH!.”

With two loud cracks, Fred and George had materialized out of thin air onto the landing Hermione, who was just ahead of Ron and Harry, was about to step onto.

“Stop  _ doing _ that!” Hermione said weakly to the twins, as she stopped short to avoid running into them.

“We heard someone taking our names in vain,” said Fred with a cheeky grin.

“So of course we came to investigate,” agreed George with a matching grin.

“I see you two have passed your Apparition test, then,” said Harry moving past Hermione to step out onto the landing.

“Hello Harry,” George said in surprise. “When did you get here?”

“We didn’t hear you come in,” said Fred. 

“I’ve been here for a while. Sirius picked me up with his motorcycle earlier and we got here just before Moody and the others left.” Harry grinned and started down the stairs to the first floor landing. “You should have seen their faces when I came into the room. Apparently, Sirius hadn’t told anyone what he was up to, just stole Dumbledore’s note from Remus and headed off to get me on his own.”

A door on the first floor opened and Mrs. Weasley came out onto the landing. She beamed in welcome and pulled Harry into a rib-cracking hug. Godric hissed in annoyance as he wrapped himself around Harry’s neck to avoid being crushed in Mrs. Weasley’s embrace.

“Oh, Harry, it’s so lovely to see you!” She pulled back and held Harry at arm’s length and examined him critically. “You’re looking well … I’m so glad to see that you’re safe … I don’t know what Sirius was thinking picking you up on his own …”

Mr. Weasley called up the stairs. “Molly, he’s here! It’s time for the meeting to start.”

“Coming, dear!” Mrs. Weasley started down the stairs, only to stop when Harry tried to follow her. “I’m sorry, dear, the meeting’s only for Order members, you stay up here with the others. Supper will be right after the meeting is done.”

Harry turned back to the others with a shrug.

“It was worth a try,” he said, as Mrs. Weasley disappeared into the dining hall, the double doors shutting firmly behind her.

Fred grinned and pulled a piece of very long, flesh coloured string from his pocket.

“Never fear, we’ve got just what you need to hear what’s going on behind those doors.”

He crept down the stairs and tossed one end of the string against the dining room doors, only to have it swerve away from them and land on the floor of the hall, a couple of feet away from the doors.

Ginny’s voice came from behind Harry. “Mom must have put an Imperturbable Charm on the dining room doors. You’re not going to be able to hear anything”

“How do you know?” said George.

“Tonks told me how to tell, if you chuck stuff at the doors and it can’t make contact, the doors been Imperturbed. Watch.” Ginny went to stand beside Fred and flicked a Dungbomb at the doors, it swerved away just like Fred’s Extendible Ear had. “See,” she whispered, “just like Tonks described.”

Fred and Ginny came back up the stairs and Fred heaved a deep sigh, “Shame. I really fancied finding out what Snape’s been up to.”

“Tonight's report must be important,” agreed George as they wandered into the drawing room. “Snape’s been hanging around for hours, waiting for the meeting to start.”

“He was here when I arrived,” Harry said. “Sirius wasn’t very happy to see him. I think that Snape’s the reason Sirius came to get me himself. He knew about the plans to pick me up, and Sirius doesn’t trust him to not be passing information about the Order’s plans on to Riddle.”

“Dumbledore trusts him, Harry,” said Hermione reprovingly.

“That doesn’t mean that he’s not double-crossing us. It’s not like Dumbledore is infallible.” Harry said.

Hermione glared at him and Harry quickly changed the subject. He would have to explain why it was important for him to appear not to trust Snape when he next had a chance to talk to Ron and Hermione privately.

“Fleur keeps mentioning Bill in her letters. I assume that he applied for a position in London so that he could work for the Order?”

Fred nodded, “Yeah, he says he misses the tombs but,” he smirked, “there are compensations …”

“Fleur Delacour has been talking about him has she?” said George. “I guess she really appreciates all those lessons to help her  _ eemprove ‘er Eeenglish  _ -”

“ - all those private lessons,” sniggered Fred.

“Charlie’s in the Order too,” said George, “but he’s still in Romania, Dumbledore wants as many foreign wizards brought in as possible, so Charlie’s trying to make contacts on his days off.”

Harry nodded, he knew better than to bring up Percy, having heard about his row with Mr. Weasley from Bill, and the fallout from it, so he cast about for another change of topic.

“Have you guys been following the Daily Prophet?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Hermione warily. “Why?”

“That’s a pretty nasty smear campaign they've got going on, isn’t it, implying that Sirius is insane and I’m naive and Moony’s been manipulating both of us. They seem pretty anxious to discredit us.”

Hermione huffed, “Fudge is behind it, I’ll bet you anything. He wants wizards on the street to think that you’re some stupid boy who’ll do anything for a little attention from Moony, that Sirius is too unbalanced to be believed, and Moony can’t be trusted because he’s a dark creature who wants to sow fear to destabilise the Ministry. I notice they didn’t print a word about the Dementors in Little Whinging, that should have been a really big story, out-of-control Dementors.”

Harry shrugged, “It’s not like anything really happened with the Dementors. They showed up and my guard drove them away again. I didn’t even know anything about it until Remus came to check in on me.”

“Harry,” Fred said in a solemn voice, “We have a very important question for you.”

“What?”

“Can we count on your support in our attempt to out prank Sirius?” asked George, just as solemnly as Fred.

Harry grinned suddenly. “That depends, what did you have in mind?”

The teens discussed potential pranks, and Fred and George tried, unsuccessfully, to get some hint from Harry as to what Sirius had planned until they heard the sound of footsteps and voices in the entrance hall.

“The meetings over,” said Fred, “Come on!”

They crept out into the landing and peered down at the crowd of witches and wizards packing the hallway below, straining their ears to hear what was being said, while trying to remain out of sight. Fred and George retreated up to the next landing and cautiously lowered the Extendible Ear, past the others on the first landing, towards the dark knot of people. Just before the flesh-coloured string had reached its target, Fred had to quickly pull it up again as he spotted his mother heading towards the stairs.

“Dammit,” he whispered before he and George retreated farther up the stairs towards their room.

Ron, Hermione, and Ginny disappeared into the drawing room but Harry moved forward until Mrs. Weasley could see him standing at the top of the stairs.

“The meeting’s over, you can come down and have dinner now, everyone’s dying to see you, Harry,” Mrs. Weasley said when she saw him.

“Can I invite Cedric to stay for supper?” Harry asked, having spotted the other boy among the Order Members preparing to leave.

“Of course, dear,” Mrs. Weasley said, smiling at Harry as he leaned over the railing and called Cedric’s name.

The witches and wizards filling the hallway looked up at Harry and most of them greeted him cheerfully, although Severus just scowled up at the young wizard. After greeting Harry, the majority of the Order members began to make their way out of his sight towards the front door, while Cedric crossed the hall to the stairs. Ron and Hermione had come out of the drawing room again and joined Harry as he descended the stairs to where Cedric was waiting for him.

“Alright, Harry?” said Cedric.

“Hello, Cedric-”

Two loud cracks heralded Fred and George’s arrival in the middle of the hall. Cedric frowned at them.

“I’m not going to tell you two anything about the meeting,” Cedric said. “So there’s no point in pestering me about it.”

While Fred and George protested that they had no intention of pestering Cedric for information on that day’s meeting, Harry noticed his dad was coming towards them.

“Potter, come with me,” Severus snapped when he saw that he had Harry’s attention.

Putting on an apprehensive expression for the benefit of the twins Harry followed Severus back up the stairs to the study. Once he had closed the door behind them Severus turned to Harry looking amused.

“Moony and Paddy reported to Dumbledore what you had told us about your dreams and the pain in your scar, and as a result, he has ordered me to begin to give you Occlumency lessons. I imagine that he will be quite astonished at how quickly you master the difficult arts of the mind.”

Harry grinned, “I’ll do my best. What else did you talk about during the meeting?”   
  


“I reported on the Dark Lord’s plans, which have not changed significantly since the beginning of the summer. I was able to determine that the Dementors in Little Whinging were not sent there by the Dark Lord, which means that it must have been someone in the Ministry who dispatched them. After that, most of the meeting was spent scolding Paddy for his recklessness in fetching you on his own and discussing what duties to assign to your guards now that you are here. Moony will be reaching out to the other werewolves, while Paddy, Tonks, and Bill will be joining the rotation for guarding the prophecy. They will also continue to provide a guard detail for you whenever you have occasion to leave this house.”

“Do you really think someone in the Ministry sent Dementors after me?”

“If the Dementors had found you without a guard, you would have been forced to use magic to defend yourself and any nearby muggles. That would have given Fudge the ammunition he needed to use the Decree Against Underage Magic to have you expelled from Hogwarts, which would have done a lot to discredit you in the eyes of the Wizarding world as well as separated you from Dumbledore. Fortunately, both our house and this one are warded against the Ministries methods of tracing underage wizards so any magic you do in either place cannot be detected.”

“Which is why I could practise dueling in our backyard but wasn’t allowed to do any magic at the park, even if there wasn’t anyone around.”

“Precisely,” agreed Severus, sardonically. “I’m glad to see that spending the last couple of hours in the company of the younger Weasley boys hasn’t caused you to lose what few wits you have, yet.”

“Very funny, Dad,” said Harry. “When are we going to have our ‘first’ Occlumency lesson?”

“There are some potions I need to get started first, now that I will have fewer distractions from my brewing, but I should be able to start in a couple of days. We will have a session at least twice a week, throughout the rest of the summer, and weekly throughout the school year.” Severus looked thoughtful. “Unfortunately no one will believe that you need remedial potion lessons, so I guess I will need to come up with some reason to give you detention every week.”

“Or I’ll just sneak down with my cloak,” said Harry with a shrug. “That’s been working so far.”

Harry’s stomach growled loudly at that point and Severus told him to go and join the others for dinner. When they came back down to the entrance hall they found it empty except for Mrs. Weasley, Remus, and Tonks magically sealing the front door’s many locks and bolts behind the departed Order members.

“Oh, Severus, I didn’t realize that you were still here. Are you staying for supper?” said Mrs. Weasley when she saw them.

Severus agreed to stay to Mrs. Weasley’s obvious surprise and swept into the dining room, with Harry close behind him.


	6. Dinner at 12 Grimmauld Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has his first dinner at 12 Grimmauld Place and gets some questions answered.

The dining room was much less crowded than it had been when Harry saw it a couple of hours earlier. Sirius, Bill, and Mr. Weasley were talking quietly with their heads together at the head of the long table that took up most of the room with Fred and George lingering nearby trying to eavesdrop on what they were saying. Ginny was a little way down the table from her oldest brother, talking animatedly to Hermione and Ron. Across the table from Ginny sat Cedric and beside him was a pile of rags that stood out in sharp contrast to the otherwise immaculate table. Sirius looked up and scowled at the sight of Severus entering the room but his scowl transformed into a wide smile when he spotted Harry.

“Sit down, Harry,” said Sirius with a wave of his hand at the table. “Now, I believe you’ve met everyone here, except for Mundungus.”

Bill and Mr. Weasley greeted Harry cheerfully and the thing Harry had taken to be a pile of rags gave a prolonged, grunting snore and then jerked awake.

“Some’n say m’ name?” Mundungus mumbled sleepily. “I ‘gree with Sirius ...”

He raised a very grubby hand in the air as though voting, his droopy, bloodshot eyes unfocused. Ginny giggled.

“The meetings over, Mundungus,” Severus snapped. “I don’t know why Dumbledore even bothers to invite you to the meetings considering that you’re incapable of staying awake through them.”

“Harry’s arrived, Dung,” added Sirius as Harry sat down at the table, next to Cedric.

“Eh?” said Mundungus, peering balefully at Harry through his matted, ginger hair. “Blimey, so ‘e ‘as. Yeah … you all right, ‘arry?”

“Yeah,” said Harry.

Mundungus fumbled in his pockets and pulled out a grimy black pipe. He stuck it in his mouth, ignited the end of it with his wand, and took a deep pull on it. Great billowing clouds of greenish smoke obscured him in seconds.

“For the last time, Mundungus,” said Mrs. Weasley sharply, as she came into the room, “will you please  _ not _ smoke that thing in the dining room, especially not when we are about to eat!”

“Ah,” said Mundungus. “Right. Sorry, Molly.”

The cloud of smoke vanished as Mundungus stowed his pipe back in his pocket, but an acrid smell of burning socks lingered.

“I am so glad I agreed to stay,” said Severus sarcastically, settling into a seat between Harry and Mr. Weasley. “What a pleasant atmosphere your guests lend to the meal, Black.”

“You’re welcome to leave at any time, Snape,” Sirius responded. “Although I don’t know what you’re complaining about, it’s not like you tend to smell any better when you come up to lunch after a morning of brewing.”

Severus glowered at Sirius. “Is it really wise to remind me of the time you spent hiding out at  _ my _ house under an assumed name, Black,” he hissed venomously.

“Sirius, please don’t provoke, Sev,” said Remus mildly as he sat down. “Maybe you could start the meal now that we’re all here.”

“Of course, Moony,” said Sirius. “Sit down everyone and let’s eat. Kreacher!”

The table was suddenly covered with an amazing assortment of food, reminiscent of a Hogwarts feast. Fred and George hurriedly sat down at the table next to Mundungus, Remus sat down next to Bill with Tonks on the other side of him, and Molly sat at the end of the table beside Ron.

“It looks like the house-elves outdid themselves in honour of your arrival, Harry,” said Tonks merrily. “We don’t usually eat this well.”

Severus snorted, “Don’t let it go to your head, Potter. House-elves are easily impressed, much like some wizards I could name.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage to deflate me if I ever do get a swelled head, Professor,” Harry retorted dryly.

The conversation died after that exchange and for the next few minutes, the only sound was the clink of cutlery and the scraping of chairs as everyone settled down to their food. Soon Tonks began to entertain Hermione and Ginny by transforming her nose between mouthfuls. Screwing up her eyes each time with a pained expression, her nose swelled to a beaklike protuberance like Snape’s, much to the Potion Master’s displeasure, shrank to something resembling a button mushroom, and then sprouted a great deal of hair from each nostril. Apparently, this was a regular mealtime entertainment, because after a while Hermione and Ginny started requesting their favorite noses.

Mr. Weasley, Bill, and Lupin were having an intense discussion about goblins, and Bill’s efforts to feel them out for the Order, while Severus and Sirius returned to sniping at each other now that Remus was no longer paying attention to them. Near the end of the meal, a gale of laughter erupted from the middle of the table, interrupting Harry and Cedric’s conversation. Fred, George, Ron, and Mundungus were rolling around in their seats.

“... and then,” choked Mundungus, tears running down his face, “and then, if you’ll believe it, ‘e says to me, ‘e says, ‘ere Dung, where didja get all them toads from? ‘Cos some son of a Bludger’s gone and nicked all mine!’ And I says, ‘Nicked all your toads, Will, what next? So you’ll be wanting some more, then?’ And if you’ll believe me, lads, the gormless gargoyle buys all ‘is own toads back orf me for twice what ‘e paid in the first place-”

“I don’t think we need to hear any more of your business dealings, thank you very much, Mundungus,” said Mrs. Weasley sharply, as Ron slumped forward onto the table, howling with laughter.

“Beg pardon, Molly,” said Mundungus at once, wiping his eyes and twinkling at Harry. “But as you know, Will nicked ‘em orf Warty Harris in the first place so I wasn’t really doing nothing wrong -”

“I don’t know where you learned about right and wrong, Mundungus, but you seem to have missed a few crucial lessons,” said Mrs. Weasley in exasperation before throwing Sirius a nasty look.

“If everyone is done eating, why don’t we move on to the pudding,” said Sirius with a smothered chuckle.

The food on the table disappeared and an elaborate array of desserts appeared in its place. 

“Molly doesn’t approve of Mundungus,” said Sirius in an undertone to Harry as he helped himself to the treacle tart that had appeared at their end of the table.

“How come he’s in the Order?” Harry said quietly.

He’s useful,” Sirius muttered. “Knows all the crooks - well he would, seeing as he’s one himself. But he’s also very loyal to Dumbledore, who helped him out of a tight spot once. It pays to have someone like Dung around, he hears things we don’t. But Molly thinks inviting him to stay for dinner is going too far, especially since I’m the one who invited him. She’s still mad at me for not leaving it up to the Order to pick you up today.”

They had finished with the pudding and Molly had started making noises about sending people off to bed when Sirius turned to Harry.

“I’m surprised that you haven’t asked about tonight’s meeting yet. I was expecting you to be pestering us for information about it all through supper.”

Harry shrugged, “Cedric’s already told me that he isn’t allowed to talk about the meetings and Ron and Hermione said that we’re not allowed in the Order-”

“And they’re quite right,” said Mrs. Weasley, her voice tight. “You’re too young.”

She was sitting bolt upright in her chair, her fists clenched upon its arms, every trace of drowsiness gone.

Sirius said, “Harry has a right to know what the Order’s plans are-”

“Hang on?” interrupted George loudly.

  
“How come Harry gets his questions answered?” said Fred angrily.

“ _ We’ve _ been trying to get stuff out of you for a month and you haven’t told us a single stinking thing!” said George.

“ _ You’re too young, you’re not in the Order, _ ” said Fred in a high-pitched voice that sounded uncannily like his mother’s. “Cedric’s no older than us and Harry’s not even of age!”

“It’s not my fault you haven’t been told what the Order’s doing,” said Sirius calmly. “That’s your parent’s decision. Harry, on the other hand -”

“It’s not down to you to decide what’s good for Harry!” said Mrs. Weasley sharply. Her normally kind face looked dangerous. “You haven’t forgotten what Dumbledore said, I suppose?”

“It’s not up to Dumbledore to decide what’s good for Harry, either,” said Remus suddenly with a hint of steel underlying his voice. “Dumbledore gave up that right when he handed Harry over to his relatives, and they are the ones who gave  _ me _ the responsibility of looking out for Harry while he is in the Wizarding World.”

There was a brief silence as everyone stared at Remus in surprise. Sirius sighed.

“You’re right, Moony,” he said apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

Remus smiled, “That’s alright, Paddy.” He turned to Harry. “If you have any questions you are welcome to ask them -”

“You may be responsible for Harry, Remus, but Dumbledore is the head of the Order and he must have his reasons for not wanting Harry to know too much-” said Mrs. Weasley, visibly building up steam again.

“I know what Dumbledore’s reasons are, Molly,” said Remus mildly, “and I see no harm in answering Harry’s questions, within reason. After all, it is better for him to get his facts from us, rather than a garbled version from … others.

He did not look at the twins but Harry felt sure that Moony, at least, knew that some Extendable Ears had survived Mrs. Weasley’s purge.

“He’s too young!” protested Mrs. Weasley.

“He’s not a child!” said Sirius impatiently.

“He’s not an adult either!” said Mrs. Weasley, glaring at Sirius. “He’s still in school and the adults responsible for him should not forget it!”

“Meaning I’m an irresponsible godfather?” demanded Sirius, his voice rising. “And what about Remus? He should be responsible enough for you!”

“You’ve been known to act rashly, Sirius, and Remus hasn’t exactly shown himself capable of stopping you from doing whatever you take it into your head to do!”

“This is about me deciding to pick up Harry on my own again, isn’t it? Remus had nothing to do with that, and I’ve already been taken to task for that by you and half the Order, I don’t need to hear it again!”

“Arthur!” Molly rounded on her husband. “Arthur, back me up!”

Mr. Weasley did not speak at once. He took off his glasses and cleaned them slowly on his robes, not looking at his wife. Only when he had replaced them carefully on his nose did he say, “Dumbledore knows the position has changed, Molly. He accepts that Harry will have to be filled into a certain extent now that he is staying at headquarters -”

“Yes, but there’s a difference between that and inviting him to ask whatever he likes!”

“Personally,” said Severus drawled sardonically, drawing all eyes to himself, Mrs. Weasley looking hopeful that she was finally about to get an ally, “I think that we should answer Potter’s questions before he gets himself killed rushing headlong into a situation he doesn’t understand fully.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Weasley, breathing deeply and looking around the table for support that did not come, “well … I can see that I’m going to be overruled but speaking as someone who has got Harry’s best interests at heart -”

“Molly, you’re not the only person at this table who cares about Harry,” said Lupin firmly, “and this isn’t your decision to make.”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Weasley, her voice cracking. “Ginny - Ron - Hermione - Fred - George - I want you out of this room now.”

There was an instant uproar as all of the younger Weasley’s protested being sent away. The argument that followed ended with Mrs. Weasley taking Ginny up to bed while the others were allowed to stay. After Ginny and Mrs. Weasley had left the room, Ginny raging the whole way, Sirius turned to Harry.

“Okay, Harry … what do you want to know?”

Harry thought about what he had been told and what he still didn’t know, and then he thought about Fred and George trying to eavesdrop on the meeting and what Moony said about garbled information and decided to start from the beginning.

“Where’s Riddle? What’s he doing? I’ve been watching the news and there hasn’t been anything that looks like him yet, no funny deaths or anything -”

That’s because there haven’t been any suspicious deaths yet,” said Sirius, “not as far as we know, anyway … and we know quite a lot.”

“How come he’s stopped killing people?” Harry asked.

“Because he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself at the moment,” said Sirius with a smug smile. “It would be dangerous for him. His comeback didn’t come off quite the way he wanted it to, you see. We rather messed it up for him.”

“Nobody apart from his Death Eaters was supposed to know that he was back, but we rescued you and you told Dumbledore about his return as soon as you could. Dumbledore, who was the very last person that Riddle wanted to know that he was back,” Remus added.

“Because Dumbledore is the only one that Riddle is scared of?” said Harry.

“That’s right,” agreed Sirius. “And Dumbledore was able to recall the Order of the Phoenix about an hour after Riddle returned.”

“So what has the Order been doing?”

“Working as hard as we can to make sure Riddle can’t carry out his plans,” said Sirius.

“And what is he planning?” asked Harry, looking at his dad.

“He’s trying to build up his army again,” Severus said. “He will need a lot more than the Death Eaters you saw at the graveyard to achieve the kind of power he wants.”

“So the Order is trying to convince as many people as possible that You-Know-Who really has returned, to put them on their guard,” said Bill. “It’s proving tricky though.”

“Because the Ministry doesn’t want anyone to know he’s back,” said Harry in disgust. “Fudge is an idiot.”

“Fudge doesn’t  _ want _ to believe that we might be telling the truth about Riddle’s return,” Remus said.

“Because accepting that Riddle has returned would mean trouble like the Ministry hasn’t had to cope with for nearly fourteen years,” said Sirius bitterly. He just can’t bring himself to face it. It’s so much more comfortable to convince himself that Dumbledore’s lying to undermine him.”

“And Fudge has been getting the Daily Prophet to discredit us so that no one will believe what we saw,” Harry said.

“And to keep them from reporting on what they’re calling Dumbledore’s rumor-mongering,” agreed Remus. “As a result, most of the Wizarding community are completely unaware that anything’s happening and that makes them easy targets for the Death Eaters if they’re using the Imperius Curse.”

“So, Dumbledore’s been spreading the news about Riddle’s return?” asked Harry.

“Yes, and getting in a lot of trouble for it,” said Remus. “He’s been voted out of the Chairmanship of the International Confederation of Wizards and demoted from Chief Warlock on the Wizengamot. They’re even talking about taking away his Order of Merlin, First Class.”

“But Dumbledore says he doesn’t care what they do as long as they don’t take him off the Chocolate Frog cards,” said Bill, grinning.

“It’s no laughing matter,” said Mr. Weasley shortly. “If he carries on defying the Ministry like this, he could end up in Azkaban and the last thing we want is Dumbledore locked up. While You-Know-Who knows Dumbledore’s out there and wise to what he’s up to, he’s going to go cautiously for a while. If Dumbledore’s out of the way - well, You-Know-Who will have a clear field.”

“So if it’s so important that we let people know that Riddle is back and the Order isn’t able to spread the word effectively, why are we waiting to get the Quibbler to publish Rita Skeeter’s story?” Harry asked.

“Fudge already has too much incentive to try to block you from returning to Hogwarts. We are waiting until the school year starts before we give Mr. Lovegood the go-ahead to publish the article,” Remus said firmly. “Now I believe that is enough for tonight, it’s getting late.”

“Moony’s right, Harry,” said Sirius with a grin. “You’ll want a good night's sleep before checking out the Quidditch pitch in the morning.”


	7. Quidditch and Cauldrons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius shows Harry and his friends his latest addition to the house at 12 Grimmauld Place.

The teens headed up the stairs with Mrs. Weasley following them to ensure that they went straight to their own rooms, rather than lingering to talk. Hermione split off on the second landing to go to the bedroom where Ginny was waiting for her rundown on everything that they had heard that evening and Fred and George said goodnight on the third landing. Ron and Harry continued up the stairs to Harry’s room, aware that Mrs. Weasley was watching them from the landing below.

Hedwig hooted imperiously at Ron and Harry from her perch on top of Harry’s wardrobe, while Pigwidgeon twittered excitedly from the top of Ron’s.

“Sorry, Hedwig,” said Ron, pulling some Owl Treats from his trunk to scatter on top of the wardrobe. “We can’t let you out to hunt tonight. Dumbledore doesn’t want too many owls swooping around the square, he thinks it’ll look suspicious.”

Harry put Godric into his Vivarium and then changed into his pajamas and settled into bed. “They didn’t really tell us very much, did they?” Harry commented as he put out the light.

“Yeah, you’re right, we already know nearly everything they told us, from using the Extendible Ears. They didn’t even mention -”

**_Crack._ **

“OUCH!”

“Keep your voice down, Ron, or Mum’ll be back up here.”

“You two just Apparated on my knees!”

“Yeah, well, it’s harder in the dark -”

Harry squinted over at Ron’s bed and saw the blurred outlines of Fred and George standing up from the bed. George came over and sat down on Harry’s bed near his feet.

“So, they didn’t tell us anything that we hadn’t already figured out for ourselves-,” said George.

“-But don’t think we didn’t notice, Harry,” Fred continued

“Notice what?” demanded Ron.

“Sirius only asked Harry if he wanted to know about  _ this  _ meeting,” George said.

“Meaning that Harry didn’t need to ask for information about  _ previous  _ meetings, because he had already been told about them.”

The twins looked at Harry expectantly.

“Moony had told me some things when he was guarding me this summer, but there isn’t much more to tell,” said Harry slowly. “I mean, he only really told me things that were going to affect me, like that he’s going to be attempting to recruit the werewolves now that he’s no longer guarding me, so he won’t be around as much for the rest of the summer. Although, there is one thing they didn’t cover-”

“What?”

“Riddle has been trying to get a hold of a prophecy that was made before I was born and the Order is trying to stop him. Apparently, I really am the Chosen One.”

Harry told Fred and George what little he knew about the prophecy that had caused Riddle to try to kill him as a baby, but he decided not to tell them about his connection with the Dark Lord or the dreams that resulted from it. After they had spent some time discussing the snippet of the prophecy that Harry knew, Fred and George apparated back to their room before their mother came to check on them and discovered that they weren’t there. Soon after the twins left Harry and Ron heard footsteps coming up the stairs and the creak of floorboards outside. Mrs. Weasley was plainly listening to see whether they were talking or not.

“She doesn’t trust us at all, you know,” said Ron regretfully after they heard Mrs. Weasley make her back down the stairs.

Harry wasn’t sure whether he would be able to get to sleep that night, but he had barely made it through arranging his memories behind his Occlumency shields when the noises of people making their way up the stairs and moving around in the floor below them blended into a very odd dream. The next thing he knew it was morning and a large black dog was washing his face with a very wet tongue.

“Get off, Snuffles!” protested Harry, attempting to shove his godfather off of him.

Satisfied that Harry was awake, Padfoot allowed himself to be pushed off of the bed and bounded over to Ron’s bed to wake him up in the same manner.

“Gerroff!” Ron howled suddenly. “What’s wrong with you!”

Padfoot leaped down off of Ron’s bed and transformed into a madly grinning Sirius.

“It woke you up, didn’t it? Come on, you need to get up and get some breakfast into you so that I can show you the Quidditch Pitch. Now that Harry’s here we can play three a side, Weasleys against Marauders.”

Sirius transformed back into Padfoot and barked cheerfully at the two boys, before disappearing out of the room and clattering back down the stairs.

“Your godfather’s mental,” Ron declared as he got up dug through his trunk for clothes for the day.

Half an hour later, Ron and Harry, who had been rushed through their breakfast by a still excited Sirius joined Fred, George, and Remus as they were ushered through a door at the back of the Entrance Hall that none of them had noticed there before. Stepping through they found themselves in a large yard, the size of a Quidditch Pitch, complete with Quidditch hoops set up at each end.

“It wasn’t easy getting the permits for a Wizard Space of this size,” said Sirius happily, enjoying the stunned looks on his guests' faces. “A few mentions of my reluctance to sue the Ministry for wrongful imprisonment did wonders, though. Here are your brooms.” 

Sirius pulled a handful of shrunken broom out of his pockets and resized them, passing them out to their owners. Quickly getting over their shock, they mounted their brooms and took to the air. Although Harry took a moment to put Godric down in the grass surrounding the Quidditch pitch before taking off, he had no desire to spend the morning listening to his snake complain about being airborne. The rest of the morning was spent playing Quidditch, Harry, Remus and Sirius against the three Weasley’s, until Ginny and Hermione came out to see what they were doing, halfway through the morning. Remus offered to give up his broom if either of the girls wanted to play and soon Ginny had joined Harry’s team. They finally landed and headed into the house for lunch in the early afternoon, after Ron’s stomach started to growl loudly enough to be audible to the other players.

“I was starting to think that you were going to be up there all day,” commented Hermione as she halted her knitting needles and gathered up the shapeless mass of yarn that they had produced.

“Ron’s stomach called the game,” said Harry, picking Godric up and letting him wind himself around Harry’s neck again. “We’d better feed him before he collapses from hunger.”

Ron flushed, “We rushed breakfast since Sirius was so eager to show us his Quidditch pitch, I can’t help it if I’m hungry.” He looked down at Harry, “After all there’s a lot of me to feed -”

Harry made a face at Ron as he pulled open the back door but his reply was lost in the explosion of sound that met their ears from inside.

“WE ARE NOT RUNNING A HIDEOUT FOR STOLEN GOODS!”

“Too loud,” Godric complained, sticking his head into Harry’s shirt. “The Weasel’s mother must be very angry.”

Fred smiled as he followed Ron and Harry inside, “I love hearing Mum shouting at someone else. It makes such a nice change.”

“- COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE, AS IF WE HAVEN’T GOT ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT WITHOUT YOU DRAGGING STOLEN CAULDRONS INTO THE HOUSE -”

“Come on Sirius, we’d better go and deal with this,” Remus said, dragging a reluctant Sirius past the teens clustered in the back of the hall. “After all this is your house. … Oh, I didn’t realize you were here, Kingsley.”

Harry stepped forward past the stairs and saw that Kingsley was indeed there, along with Mundungus who had a stack of precariously piled cauldrons sitting beside him.

“I came by after Hestia relieved me, thought I’d leave a report for Dumbledore -,” Kingsley stopped short when he saw Harry and the other teens.

“Lunch is waiting in the dining room. I’m sure you’re hungry after a morning spent flying,” Mrs. Weasley said pointedly to the teens.

They allowed themselves to be ushered into the dining room but Fred and George lingered by the door after Mrs. Weasley had closed it behind them, trying to hear what was being said in the hall.

“Sirius just told Mum to let him deal with Dung since it’s his house Dung’s brought those cauldrons into,” said Fred in an impressed voice.

George winced as their mother’s raised voice sounded from the hall again, “Mum definitely didn’t like that.”

The twins continued to listen intently but after Molly’s final outburst the hall grew quiet.

“They must have moved out of the hall,” said Fred in disappointment after a couple of minutes. “I can’t hear anything.”

“At least your Mum’s not yelling at Mundungus any more,” Hermione said. “I wonder what he’s doing with all those cauldrons?”

“Who cares,” said Ron as he sat down and picked up one of the sandwiches piled on the platters on the table. Reminded of how hungry they were, the others joined him.

The piles of sandwiches had shrunk considerably before Sirius and Remus came into the dining room.

“Good! There’s still some food left for us!” said Sirius as he collapsed into his seat at the head of the table. “I’ve seen how much you Weasley’s can eat.”

“Where’s Mum?” asked Ginny, ignoring Sirius’s dramatics.

“She’s gone to meet up with your Dad during his lunch break,” Remus said. “Since Sirius and I are here to keep an eye on the house and you kids.”

After they had finished lunch, Hermione dragged Harry and Ron back up to their room.

“So what was that about yesterday, Harry. How can you say Professor Snape isn’t trustworthy? Why would you want Fred and George to think that?” she asked plaintively once they were alone.

“I don’t care if Fred and George think Dad’s trustworthy or not, but it’s important that I act like  _ I _ don’t trust him,” Harry said. “I can’t keep Riddle out of my mind, remember, so it’s important that I have memories that will show him what I want him to see, and I definitely don’t want Riddle to think that he can use Dad against me.”

Ron’s eyes widened. “Yeah, that would be bad,” he said.

“Is this part of that new Occlumency method you were talking about yesterday?” Hermione said eagerly. “You said you would teach it to me.”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “It’s based on a memorization technique which helps you organize your memories using a mind palace. Basically, you visualize a location, like a building or a street of shops or something like that and you use it to organize your memories within that location. I decided to use Hogwarts and I’ve put the memories that I want Riddle to see in obvious locations within the castle, like the Gryffindor tower, or the Quidditch pitch, places like that, and I hid the memories that I can’t let Riddle see in Dad’s quarters, since if Riddle ever figures out that I have any idea where they are, let alone ever having been inside them, it doesn’t matter if he finds the memories I stored there.”

“Right! I’ve read about that but I didn’t think about using it for Occlumency!” Hermione exclaimed. “Since I already use memories of books I’ve read as my Occlumency shield, I could store my memories in a library! Each book could hold a memory and I could organize them by their locations on the shelves! I just need to figure out where to hide the memories that I wouldn’t want to be seen.”

“Why don’t you hide them in the middle of the longest and most boring books you have memorized,” suggested Ron. “Kind of like having a smaller version of your Occlumency shield for every important memory.”

Hermione smiled brightly at Ron. “That’s a great idea, Ron. I don’t actually have that many books completely memorized, but I could put them in sections devoted to memories that look unimportant, like my Ancient Rune classes and textbooks for instance, and then hide those sections in the back corners of my library. I need to get started on this right away! Let's see, I’ll need a quiet place to sit so that I can focus on building my mind’s library. Hopefully, Ginny won’t mind me taking over our room for a while.”

Hermione wandered back down the stairs, muttering to herself about organizational methods for her library. Harry looked over at Ron.

“So, are you going to try building a mind palace, too?”

“I don’t know, mate. I didn’t do very well with the regular type of Occlumency.”

“You won’t know unless you try. Maybe you can use the Burrow as your mind palace?”

“Maybe,” said Ron with a shrug. “I’ll think about it-”

A shriek from down the stairs interrupted Ron, and he grinned.

“That sounded like Hermione. I wonder what Fred and George have done now?”

“It could have been Sirius and Remus,” Harry pointed out as he headed for the door.

“Naw, Sirius has better aim. If it was a Marauder prank they would have gotten Fred or George not Hermione,” Ron informed him, following Harry out of the room. “And that was Hermione’s voice.”

“The bushy furred one is almost as loud as the Weasel’s mother,” Godric complained, slithering deeper into Harry’s shirt, as Hermione started to yell at Fred and George for their prank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next couple of weeks are going to be busy for me with preparing for the start of the school year, especially with the extra challenges presented by this pandemic, so the next chapter might be delayed.


	8. The Extra Weasley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regulus tells Harry about the Black family, and Sirius is finally ready to introduce the long lost Weasley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Indigoace, BWC, tryingtobestine, and Sp8cefluff for their help in deciding what Remus' name should be as a Weasley. BWC and tryingtobebest both suggested the name I finally went with.

The doorbell at 12 Grimmauld Place rang several times a day, which was a cue for Harry and the others to stop whatever they were doing at the time to attempt to eavesdrop on the visitor. They were rarely successful at gleaning any information from the snatches of conversation they were able to overhear before the Order member that had answered the door led the visitor out of the hall and out of earshot of the eavesdropping teenagers. A couple of days after he arrived at the Order’s headquarters, Harry happened to be in the hall, talking to Regulus’s portrait, when the door rang and Mrs. Weasley rushed to answer it and take Professor McGonagall, who looked very odd dressed in a Muggle dress and coat, into the dining room. Regulus sighed.

“It’s been like this all summer. It’s probably just as well that Sirius told Kreacher to rehang Mother’s portrait elsewhere. It would have been very distressing for her to see so many … individuals who are outside of her usual social circles coming into her home-”

A loud snort interrupted him. “It would have been very distressing for the rest of us,” Alphard Black said scornfully. “‘Burga’s reaction to your brother moving back in was bad enough. I shudder to think of how she would have reacted to seeing the house occupied by ‘blood traitors’ and muggleborns.”

Regulus scowled at his uncle but did not argue the point, instead he returned to what he had been saying when Professor McGonagall's arrival had interrupted them.

“As I was saying earlier, there is a tapestry depicting our family tree in the Drawing Room. I believe that you would find it quite interesting to peruse, you should have Sirius show it to you some time.”

“Why don’t you do it?” Harry asked. “I’m sure there’s a picture frame in the Drawing Room that you could use.”

Regulus smiled. “That’s an excellent idea. I will meet you there.”

Soon Regulus was studying the tapestry from a borrowed picture frame. The tapestry looked immensely old; it was faded and looked as though it had been gnawed in places but there was evidence that the house-elves had made some attempts to repair it and the golden thread with which it was embroidered still glinted brightly enough to show a sprawling family tree dating back to the Middle Ages. Large words at the very top of the tapestry read:

**THE NOBLE AND MOST ANCIENT HOUSE OF BLACK**

**“TOUJOURS PUR”**

“I must talk to Sirius about restoring the names removed from the tree,” he said with a frown. “As the head of the family he has the authority to do so and I’m sure between the two of us we should be able to figure out the spell work needed.”

Harry studied the marks on the tapestry where the names had been burned away. He pointed to the one beside Regulus’s name.

“I assume that’s where Sirius was, I know what happened there, but who were the others and why were they removed from the family tree?”

“Well, there was our cousin Andromeda, who married a muggleborn, she’s Nymphadora’s mother. I see that Nymphadora’s name never made it onto the tree at all, I would assume that’s why Kreacher doesn’t treat her like she’s a member of the family. Then there’s our Uncle Alphard, who you’ve met, he was removed when Mother found out that he had left his money to Sirius. She was furious when she heard about it, I think Mother was expecting Sirius to come home again when he realized how hard it was to manage on his own, but in between the Potters taking him in and Uncle Alphard leaving him enough to live on that never happened. I do know that Mother didn’t actually remove Sirius’ name until after Uncle Alphard’s will was read, she blasted both of them out of the tree on the same day.” Regulus studied the tree some more. “I’m not sure about the others, although I believe that we had a second cousin who married a Weasley, which would likely have gotten them disowned.”

Harry traced the lines and pointed to a small round burn mark, “That would be this one here then.” He looked back down at the bottom of the tree, where he had noticed a familiar name beside the burn mark where Andromeda’s name had once been. “You’re related to the Malfoys!” he exclaimed in surprise, once he had verified that he had read the names connected to Narcissa Black correctly.

A fond smile graced Regulus’s face. “Yes, Mother was not in favour of the match but Cissi was quite determined to marry Lucius. In the end, Uncle Cygnus decided that the Malfoy’s were rich and influential enough to make up for them not being one of the sacred twenty-eight, despite Mother’s objections. It appears that their son is of an age with you, although since I imagine he is in Slytherin like his parent’s you might not know him.”

“Yeah, he’s in Slytherin, but I know him all right,” Harry said. “Hey, if the Malfoy’s are of a lower social standing than the Black’s, does that mean I outrank Draco since I’m the Black heir?”

Regulus hesitated, “It could be argued that as the Black heir you would outrank the Malfoy heir, but the fact that you’re a half-blood would count against you in the circles that still respect such things, and I’m afraid that the Black family has lost a lot of status since my father’s death and Sirius’s incarceration. I’m sure my brother could do something about that if he cared to, but I doubt that he would regard that as a good use of his time, nor would he welcome my suggesting anything of the sort to him.”

Harry grinned at the thought of Sirius playing at politics like Lucius Malfoy. “Yeah, I don’t think Paddy cares about his own social standing, let alone the family’s. Still, it might be fun to point out to Draco that technically I outrank him.”

Regulus nodded at the bottom of the tapestry again. “Now Bella’s marriage was much more to Mother’s liking, the Lestranges being among the twenty-eight…” Regulus’s smile faded. “Harry, you must promise me that you will stay far away from Lucius Malfoy and the Lestranges, especially now that the Dark Lord has returned.”

Taken back by the sudden urgency in Regulus’s voice, Harry nodded. “I will,” he promised. “I know Draco’s dad is a Death Eater … is your cousin Bella's husband one too? He wasn’t one of the ones that responded to Riddle's summons in the graveyard.”

“That’s because dear Bella and her husband are in Azkaban, they came in with Barty Crouch Jr., along with Rodolphus’s brother Rabastan,” said Sirius from the doorway of the Drawing room. “A good thing too, if you ask me. Why are you even talking about them?”

“I wanted to show Harry the family tree. If he’s going to be the Black family heir then he should have some idea of our history,” Regulus said stiffly from his borrowed frame.

Sirius scowled, “Why? I’m the last of the Black’s and as you can see, I’m not exactly part of the family anymore,” he said, striding forward and waving a hand at the tapestry. “It’s pretty clear what the Black family stood for and it isn’t anything worth preserving, the only Black’s still acknowledged as part of the family are all Death Eaters!”

“Cissy never took the Dark Mark,” said Regulus quietly.

“But she didn’t do anything to prevent Lucius from following Riddle, did she?” Sirius retorted. “You and Cissy might have had second thoughts when you saw what Riddle was prepared to do to gain power, but neither of you had any problems with him at first, any more than our parents did!” Sirius took a deep breath and turned his back on the tapestry. “I didn’t come in here to get into an argument with you Reg. Harry, Snape is here for your Occlumency lesson, he’s waiting for you in the study.”

As Harry left the room he heard Regulus’s quiet voice behind him. “You’re right, Sirius. I did think that the Dark Lord had the right idea at first, and I was wrong, but that doesn’t mean that we need to throw out everything that -”

Regulus’s voice was cut off as Sirius stormed out of the Drawing room, slamming the door on his way out, and stomped down the stairs. Harry wondered if this was how every interaction between the brothers went as he joined his dad in the study.

Among the visitors that flitted in and out of the house, there were a few who stayed to visit those living there. Snape was there regularly for Harry’s Occlumency lessons, as well as to deliver reports on the Death Eaters movements, and he frequently stayed for supper afterwards, much to the confusion of the Weasleys. Cedric was also a frequent visitor, although he was no longer doing any work for the Order he had a standing invitation to come over to play Quidditch with Harry and the Weasleys and often stayed for lunch. Remus was staying at the house now that Harry was living there, although he was absent for long periods of time to find and talk to other werewolves for the Order, and Tonks tended to linger whenever Remus was around. Whenever Remus was there Sirius recruited him to help in outdoing the twins in their ongoing prank war. It was one Saturday morning, near the end of August when Sirius decided that he was ready to unveil his final prank of the summer.

It was nearing lunchtime when Sirius found Fred and George on the Quidditch pitch playing with Harry, Ron, Cedric, and Ginny. He settled down to wait for them to finish their game and notice Remus. It wasn’t long before the teens landed and headed towards the house for lunch only to stop short and stare at the man standing beside Sirius. Fred suddenly grinned.

“George!” he exclaimed. “Our long lost brother has been found!”

“Welcome to the family, Ernest!” George said, slinging his arm over Remus, shoulder and grinning back at Fred who studied the two of them thoughtfully. “So, what do you think, Fred?”

“There’s too many differences for polyjuice potion,” Fred responded circling them. “I would guess Ern here is the product of some skillful transfiguration work.”

“I agree,” said George sagely, stroking his chin as he looked between Remus and Fred. “Unless our erstwhile opponent has recruited his cousin the metamorphmagus in his latest prank. What do you think, Ern, or should that be Tonks?”

Remus smiled, “Sorry, boys, I’m not Tonks, nor have I been transfigured, try again.”

Fred and George burst into delighted laughter. “Moony! We should have realized it was you ... Who else … would help Sirius ... with a prank like this?” wheezed Fred.

“But if you didn’t use transfiguration, Padfoot, then how did you get Moony to look so much like us?” George asked once he had calmed down again.

“We’ve never heard of any other type of spell that could have that effect,” agreed Fred. “Is this some potion that we haven’t come across? A weaker form of polyjuice maybe?”

“Nope,” said Sirius. “I didn’t use a potion or a spell. Remus’s transformation was accomplished using Muggle methods only.”

Remus and Sirius laughed at the expressions of astonishment on the teen’s faces. Fred and George looked at each other and then looked at Sirius with identical scheming looks on their faces.

“I do believe we have overlooked a potential source of inspiration, George,” said Fred.

“Indeed, Fred, we must question our kind patron about these Muggle methods of transformation, whenever you have the time, of course, Padfoot,” George said with a sweeping bow to Sirius.

“Perhaps Harry and Hermione might be of assistance as well,” remarked Fred. “But first…” Fred and George began to usher Remus towards the house, “it’s about time that Ernest here met the rest of the family.”

From the sound of the voices coming from the dining room, it was apparent that everyone else had already gathered there for lunch. Fred and George promptly sent Ginny into the dining room to bring Bill back out into the hall.

“What are you two up to?” asked Bill suspiciously as he followed Ginny out into the hall and then did a double-take as he saw three red heads facing him with identical grins on their nearly identical faces. He rubbed his face. “Fred, George, what has Mum told you about messing with polyjuice potion? The things that could have gone wrong ... it’s not something to play with!”

“Why Bill, you wound us…”

“We wouldn’t dream of messing around with polyjuice potion …”

“It’s me, Ernest,” Remus interjected in an uncanny imitation of the twins' voices when they were pretending to be hurt. “Don’t you recognize your own brother, Bill?”

Fred and George turned to Remus in delight. “There, there, Ern, I’m sure Bill didn’t mean it,” George choked out before succumbing to laughter.

“That’s incredible, Moony!” exclaimed Fred. “You sounded just like George!”

“You mean he sounded like you,” George retorted.

The twins then looked at each other with broad grins. “He sounded like us!” they chorused before bursting into laughter again, clutching a very smug looking Remus to hold themselves up.

Bill rolled his eyes. “Very funny. I’m surprised that you’re willing to go along with their pranks, Remus.”

Oh, this isn’t their prank,” said Sirius, straightening up from where he was leaning against the wall. “But don’t worry, no polyjuice potion was involved. I used strictly Muggle means to disguise Moony and the voice is all him. You’ll have to get him to show you his McGonagall imitation later. Now give me time to get in and sit down, I want to see the lot of you coming in. I wonder how long it will take Molly and Arthur to realize that they’ve gained a son.”

Sirius went into the dining room followed by Harry and Cedric, leaving the Weasley children standing in the hall.

“C’mon, Bill. If we all go in together there’s a chance that Mum and Dad won’t notice Ern right away. The longer it takes them to realize that there’s three of us now the better the joke.”

Bill looked down at the twins and Remus thoughtfully for a moment and then grinned. “All right, I’m in.”

Ginny cheered and darted past Bill to open the right hand door while Bill swung open the left. The five Weasleys plus one entered the dining room in a large group and settled themselves around the foot of the long table. As soon as they sat down Ginny started pestering her newest brother to show them the McGonagall imitation that Sirius had mentioned and soon gales of laughter erupted from their end of the table as Remus proved to be just as skilled a mimic as Sirius had implied he was. Molly looked down the table at her offspring with a frown.

“Fred, you shouldn’t make fun of Professor McGonagall like that-” Molly stopped and looked again at the redhead she had just spoken too. “All right, what’s going on? Fred, George, what have you done this time? I swear if this is another one of your products!”

“Why Mother, don’t you recognize our long lost brother, Ernest,” protested Fred.

“Don’t worry, Ern, we still think you’re part of the family, even if no one else does,” George said.

Fred and George, answer your mother,” Arthur said in a stern voice. “What did you use to make Remus look like you and did he agree to it?”

“It wasn’t us, Dad,” Fred said quickly. “Sirius disguised Moony using Muggle methods, no magic necessary.”

“Muggle methods, really?” Arthur turned to Sirius. “I didn’t know Muggles could do stuff like that! How did you do it? Is it alright if I take a closer look, Remus?”

Arthur started to get up from his chair, intent on dragging Sirius over to where Remus sat to get him to explain how he had changed the werewolf's appearance, but Molly grabbed his arm.

“I’m sure that Sirius and Remus will answer all of your questions _after_ we eat lunch, Arthur,” she said pointedly.

Arthur sank back down in his chair sheepishly and went back to eating his lunch, listening avidly as Sirius started to explain what he had been learning about Muggle stage make-up.


	9. Booklists and Badges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hogwarts booklists arrive and so do badges for Gryffindors newest prefects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long. It's taking me a while to adjust to being back at work after that very extended March Break.

On the very last day of the holidays, Harry was in his room feeding Godric when Ron came in carrying a couple of envelopes.

“Booklists have arrived,” he said, throwing one of the envelopes over to Harry. “About time, I thought they’d forgotten, they usually come much earlier than this …”

“McGonagall was probably waiting for Dumbledore to finally hire a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher,” Harry said as he left Godric to his mouse and opened his letter. “I wonder who they got -”

**_Crack._ **

Fred and George apparated into the room, right beside Harry. He was so used to them doing this by now that he didn’t even startle.

“We were just wondering who assigned the Slinkhard book,” said Fred conversationally.

“Because it means Dumbledore’s found a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher,” said George.

“And about time too,” said Fred.

“I was just wondering who Dumbledore found,” Harry said, looking at the book list he had pulled out of his envelope and seeing the book Fred and George were talking about,  _ Defensive Magical Theory,  _ by Wilbert Slinkhard. “It’s too bad that the  _ Daily Prophet _ ruined Sirius’s chances of getting the position. Whoever Dumbledore hired won’t be nearly as interesting as he would have been.”

George chortled, “Professor Padfoot, that would have been amazing!”

“What’s up with you, Ron?” asked Fred.

Ron did not answer. Harry looked around. Ron was standing very still with his mouth slightly open, gaping at his letter from Hogwarts.

“What’s the matter?” said Fred impatiently, moving around Ron to look over his shoulder at the parchment.

Fred’s mouth fell open too.

“Prefect?” he said, staring incredulously at the letter. “ _ Prefect? _ ”

George leapt forward, seized the envelope in Ron’s other hand, and turned it upside down. Harry saw something scarlet and gold fall into George’s palm.

“No way,” said George in a hushed voice.

“There’s been a mistake,” said Fred, snatching the letter out of Ron’s grasp and holding it up to the light as though checking for a watermark. “No one in their right mind would make Ron a prefect …”

The twins’ heads turned in unison and both of them stared at Harry.

“What? You thought I’d get it?” asked Harry, recovering from his own surprise. “No, I’ve caused too much trouble. Look how often I’ve ended up in detention.”

“Yeah,” said Fred slowly. “Yeah, you’ve caused too much trouble, mate. Well, at least one of you’s got their priorities right.”

He strode over to Harry and clapped him on the back while giving Ron a scathing look.

“ _ Prefect _ … icle Ronnie the prefect …”

“Oh, Mom’s going to be revolting,” groaned George, thrusting the prefect badge back at Ron as though it might contaminate him.

Ron, who still had not said a word, took the badge, stared at it for a moment, and then held it out to Harry as though asking mutely for confirmation that it was genuine. Harry took it. A large P was superimposed on the Gryffindor lion, just like the badge he had seen on Percy’s chest so often.

The door banged open. Hermione came tearing into the room, her cheeks flushed and her hair flying. There was an envelope in her hand.

“Did you - did you get -?”

She spotted the badge in Harry’s hand and let out a shriek.

“I knew it!” she said excitedly, brandishing her letter. “Me too, Harry, me too!”

“No,” said Harry quickly, pushing the badge back into Ron’s hand. “It’s Ron, not me. You really think Dumbledore would make me a prefect after all the stuff I’ve pulled. I mean half the time I’ve spent at Hogwarts has been in detention with Snape!”

Hermione gaped at him. “But Harry, that was Snape …,” she trailed off as she realized that she couldn’t let on the real reason that Harry spent so much time in detention with their Potions professor in front of Fred and George.

“And he hates me, I know,” said Harry. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve spent a lot more time in detention than you or Ron. I’ll bet Dumbledore made the two of you prefects to try to keep me out of trouble.”

Hermione looked over at Ron and blushed harder than ever when she noticed the defiant expression on his face. “No, that’s not … Ron’s done loads of … he’s really … Oh Ron! I should have realized it would be you, not Harry! Well done, Ron!”

Ron smiled a little at Hermione’s belated enthusiasm. The door behind Hermione opened a little wider and Mrs. Weasley came into the room to talk to Ron about buying him new pajamas. The shriek she gave when Fred and George pointed out Ron’s new badge sounded just like Hermione’s.

Ron and Harry spent the afternoon packing their possessions, which seemed to have scattered themselves all over the house. Ron kept moving his prefect’s badge around, first placing it on his bedside table, then putting it into his jeans pocket, then taking it out and laying it on his folded robes, as though to see the effect of the red on the black, until Fred and George dropped in and offered to stick it to his forehead with a Permanent Sticking Charm. After that, he wrapped it tenderly in his maroon socks and locked it in his trunk.

Around six o’clock Mrs. Weasley returned from Diagon Alley with their new school books, and a long package wrapped in brown paper that contained the new broom she had bought Ron for becoming a prefect, and told them to come down for supper. When the two boys made it down to the dining room after Ron had thoroughly examined every inch of his new broom, they found that Mrs. Weasley had hung a scarlet banner over the table which read - CONGRATULATION RON AND HERMIONE - NEW PREFECTS. The long table was heavily laden with a variety of festive foods.

“I thought we’d have a little party,” said Mrs. Weasley beaming at Ron, as they entered the room. “Your father and Bill are on their way, Ron, I’ve sent them both owls and they’re thrilled.”

Sirius, Tonks, Remus, and Kingsley Shacklebolt were already there and Mad-Eye Moody stumped in shortly after Harry had got himself a butterbeer. Soon after that Mr. Weasley and Bill arrived, along with Mundungus Fletcher. Mrs. Weasley was in such a good mood that she didn’t object to Mungungus’s presence like she usually would.

“Well, I think a toast is in order,” said Mr. Weasley, when everyone had a drink. He raised his goblet. “To Ron and Hermione, the new Gryffindor prefects!”

After everyone had helped themselves to the food on the table, Harry wandered around the room. Ron was rhapsodizing about his broom to anybody who would listen. Hermione was discussing what she had learned from the Hogwarts house-elves the previous year and her ideas on house-elf rights. Mrs. Weasley and Bill were having their usual argument about Bill’s hair, which Harry avoided getting involved in by heading over to the corner where Fred and George were huddled with Mundungus.

Mundungus stopped talking when he saw Harry, and so Harry moved off again to where Remus was talking to Kingsley Shacklebolt.

“I don’t understand why Dumbledore didn’t make Potter a prefect?” said Kingsley, not noticing Harry approaching them.

“He’ll have his reasons,” replied Remus.

“But it would have shown confidence in him. It’s what I’d’ve done,” persisted Kingsley.

“I’m afraid it would have been hard to justify making me prefect with the amount of time I’ve spent in detention,” Harry said cheerfully as he reached the two men, “and the number of house points I’ve lost over the years. Ron’s a much better choice, really. Besides it’s not like I’d have the time for prefect duties this year, in between Quidditch and my Occlumency lessons with Snape.”

“I hope Ron and Hermione have better luck keeping you in line than I did with your father and Sirius,” Remus said with a smile.

“It will probably help that they’ve got me outnumbered instead of the other way around.”

Harry wandered off again and listened to Ron describe his broom to Tonks, while he finished his plate of food. When he returned his plate to the table Mad-Eye Moody called him over to show him a picture of the original Order of the Phoenix. Harry’s good mood disappeared as he looked at the picture and listened to Moody talk about them. Of the twenty-three people smiling up at him from the picture, seven were dead, and then there were Neville’s parents … And then Moody got to the last row where Harry’s parents sat on either side of Peter Pettigrew.

Harry looked up at Moody, who was evidently under the impression that he had given Harry a bit of a treat and attempted to smile.

“Yeah … Er … listen, I’ve just remembered, I haven’t packed my …”

He was spared the trouble of inventing an object he had not packed; Sirius had just said, “What’s that you’ve got there, Mad-Eye?” and Moody had turned toward him. Harry quickly slipped out of the dining room and up the stairs to his room. When he got there he dropped heavily onto his bed and Godric slithered out of his shirt and nuzzled his ear.

“You are upset,” he hissed.

Harry gave a shaky laugh and stroked his snake. “Moody showed me a picture of the Order from the First Wizarding War. So many of them died … and now we need to fight Riddle all over again … I can’t help worrying about who will be killed by the Death Eaters this time ...“

“You and the others are safe here,” Godric hissed, sounding confused. “This place is hidden from those who would hurt you, isn’t it?”

“Yes, you’re right,” Harry hissed. “We are safe here.”

“And if the evil one finds you and tries to hurt you again then I will bite him for you,” Godric hissed fiercely, rearing up from Harry’s shoulder and showing his fangs.

This time Harry’s laugh was stronger. “Thank you, Godric,” he said before gently unwinding the snake from his neck and getting himself ready for bed. Even though nothing had changed from when he had come up to his room, Harry felt a lot better. Godric had reminded him that whatever Voldemort decided to throw at him and his friends, they wouldn’t be facing it on their own.

It wasn’t long before Ron came up to bed, still excited about his new broom. He placed it on his bed and kept staring at it while he changed into his new pajamas, talking about its features the whole time. Harry wondered if he was planning to sleep with it but Ron tenderly packed it into his trunk before he climbed into bed. The two boys talked about the broom and Ron’s chances of getting on the Quidditch team that year until Godric hissed at them grumpily from where he was curled up on Harry’s pillow.

“Godric says that we are making too much noise and we should go to sleep like him,” Harry translated with a grin.

“I suppose he’s right,” said Ron reluctantly. “We’ll need to be up early to leave for KIng’s Cross. Good night, Harry.”

“Good night, Ron,” said Harry lying down beside his snake. “Good night, Godric.”

Harry carefully strengthened his Occlumency shield and arranged his memories in his mental Hogwarts and drifted off to sleep. In his dreams, he saw his mother and father smiling at him but before he could talk to them they were gone and Wormtail was there in their place holding the knife he had used in the graveyard. Suddenly, Remus and Sirius were standing between Harry and Wormtail who cowered away from them before transforming into a rat and dashing away with Padfoot in close pursuit. Harry turned and found Ron and Hermione standing nearby their prefect badges gleaming on their robes as they grabbed Harry to pull him back towards Hogwarts, Hermione scolding him about getting into trouble as they went. Then the dream shifted and Harry found himself once again walking down a familiar corridor that ended in a locked door. He woke up abruptly with his scar prickling and Remus knocking at the door.

“Better hurry up boys if you want to have time for breakfast before we leave for King’s Cross.”


	10. Friends and Slytherins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry heads back to Hogwarts and makes another attempt to reach out to Draco.

After breakfast, the house was full of the noise and confusion of last-minute packing and trunks and animals being brought downstairs to the entrance hall. Fred and George ended up knocking Ginny down two flights of stairs by bewitching their trunks to fly downstairs to save the bother of carrying them themselves. Fortunately, Ginny wasn’t badly hurt and her mother patched her up, while loudly dressing Fred and George down for their recklessness. Harry thought they would be ready to leave once Ginny had recovered from her fall, but Mad-Eye Moody had shown up to take charge of the trip to King’s Cross and he was insisting that they couldn’t leave until Sturgis Podmore arrived to fill out Harry’s guard detail.

Finally, Sirius pointed out to Moody that the children would miss the train if they didn’t leave soon and Harry clambered over the trunks cluttering the hall to get to Mrs. Weasley standing by the front door. Sirius followed him as Padfoot, easily leaping over the trunks in his way. As they started their walk to Kings Cross they were met by Tonks, who was disguised as an elderly woman in a purple hat, at the first corner on their way.

“Wotcher, Harry,” she said, winking. “Better hurry up, hadn’t we, Molly?” she added, checking her watch.

“I know, I know,” moaned Mrs. Weasley, lengthening her stride, “but Mad-Eye wanted to wait for Sturgis. … If only Arthur could have got us cars from the Ministry again … but Fudge wouldn’t let him borrow so much as an empty ink bottle these days. …  _ How _ Muggles can stand traveling without magic …”

But Padfoot gave a joyful bark and gamboled around them, snapping at pigeons and chasing his own tail. Harry couldn’t help laughing at his godfather's antics. Godric stuck his head out of Harry’s shirt at Padfoot’s bark.

“The dog-man needs to work on his hunting. He won’t catch those birds making so much noise,” he hissed dismissively, before wrapping himself around Harry’s neck again and ignoring Padfoot’s further antics.

It took them twenty minutes to reach King’s Cross by foot and nothing more eventful happened during that time than Sirius chasing a couple of cats for Harry’s entertainment. When they were finally on platform nine and three quarters Mrs. Weasley watched the entrance, anxiously waiting for the others to arrive, while Harry looked around the platform. He spotted Draco fairly quickly but didn’t see Neville or Luna anywhere. Harry decided to wait until they were on their way to Hogwarts to talk to Draco when he saw that Lucius Malfoy had come to see his son off that year.

“Hey, Harry!” called a tall boy with dreadlocks. “Isn’t that Moony’s dog?”

“Yep,” Harry responded with a grin.

Sirius wagged his tail furiously and gave a bark that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. Harry noticed that Lucius Malfoy’s head whipped around at the sound and he glared at the big, black dog standing beside Harry. The fur on Sirius’s back bristled and he returned the glare.

“Oh good,” said Mrs. Weasley in a relieved voice, completely oblivious to the staring match happening behind her, “ here’s Alastor with the luggage, look …”

A porter’s cap pulled low over his mismatched eyes, Moody came limping through the archway pushing a cart full of their trunks.

“All okay,” he muttered to Mrs. Weasley and Tonks. “Don’t think we were followed. …”

Seconds later, Mr. Weasley emerged onto the platform with Ron and Hermione. Sirius took this as his cue to morph back into his wizard form and with a last glare at Lucius, he began to help with unloading Moody’s luggage cart. They had just finished when Fred, George, and Ginny turned up with Remus.

“No trouble?” growled Moody.

“Nothing,” said Lupin.

“I’ll still be reporting Sturgis to Dumbledore,” said Moody. “That’s the second time he’s not turned up in a week. Getting as unreliable as Mundungus.”

“Well, look after yourselves,” said Remus, shaking hands all around. He reached Harry last and pulled him into a hug. “Especially you, Harry. Be careful.”

“I will,” Harry promised as Remus released him. Then Sirius engulfed his godson in a bear hug before pulling away and ruffling his hair.

“We’ll hold you to that, pup,” he said. “Don’t forget to use your mirror and let us know what’s going on, ok?”

A warning whistle sounded; the students still on the platform started hurrying onto the train.

“Quick, quick,” said Mrs. Weasley distractedly, hugging them at random and catching Harry twice. “Write. … Be good. … If you’ve forgotten anything we’ll send it on. … Onto the train, now, hurry. …”

Soon they were on the train waving at the adults left behind on the platform. The train began to move and Sirius transformed back into a big, black dog and bounded alongside the window, wagging his tail. They heard laughter from the people standing on the platform, as they watched the animagus chase the train, and then they turned the corner, and Sirius was gone.

Fred and George disappeared down the corridor and Harry looked at Ron and Hermione.

“Shall we go and find Neville and Luna, then? Neville said he would find her and save a compartment for us when he last wrote.”

Ron and Hermione exchanged looks.

“We’re - well - Ron and I are supposed to go into the prefect carriage,” Hermione said awkwardly. “But I don’t think we’ll have to stay there all journey. Our letters said we just get instruction from the Head Boy and Girl and then patrol the corridors from time to time.”

“Right,” said Harry. “Well come and find me when you’re done then. I’d better go find Neville.” He turned to Ginny. “You coming?”

“Sure,” she said. “I think I know where Luna will be.”

Harry took Hedwig’s cage in one hand and the handle of his trunk in the other and struggled off down the corridor after Ginny. In the very last carriage, they finally found Luna and Neville sitting together in the final compartment.

“I knew she’d be here,” Ginny crowed triumphantly as she opened the door. “Luna always heads right for the back of the train.”

Neville looked up with an expression of relief as Harry followed Ginny into the compartment.

“Hi, Harry. Hi, Ginny,” he said.

“Hi, Neville,” Harry responded before turning to Luna who looked up from the magazine she was reading upside down. “Hi, Luna. Is your Dad ready to run the special edition tomorrow?”

“Of course,” she said dreamily. “He’ll send you a complimentary copy so you can see it for yourself. We think it turned out quite well, although it’s not as interesting as the latest sighting of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack.”

“Please thank him for me. How was your summer?”

The four teens discussed their summer vacations. Harry and Ginny had to be careful about revealing anything about the Order of the Phoenix but they were able to describe Sirius's backyard Quidditch Pitch in great detail. The conversation ended with Neville showing off the  _ Mimbulus Mimbletonia _ his great-uncle Algie had given him for his birthday and accidentally covering them all in Stinksap. Godric was complaining loudly about the smell and Neville was reassuring Harry that the Stinksap wasn’t poisonous, since Harry had ended up with a mouthful of sap when the door of their compartment slid open.

“What happened Harry? Did Fred and George decide to prank you now that Sirius is out of reach?”

Harry wiped his glasses off and looked over at the door. Cedric was standing there grinning at their predicament with a very pretty girl standing beside him.

“Hi Cedric, Cho,” Harry said. “No this is entirely Neville’s fault. Apparently, he didn’t realize that his new plant’s defences would be quite so…” Harry gestured around at the mess blanketing the compartment.

Neville blushed and stuttered out another apology.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Ginny bracingly. “Look we can get rid of all this easily.” She pulled out her wand. “Scourgify!”

The Stinksap vanished.

“You should show Fred and George your plant,” Cedric told Neville kindly. “I’ll bet they’ll find a use for its sap in one of their new products. Anyways, I just thought I’d stop by and say hi. I’ll see you later, Harry.”

Cho smiled at the occupants of the compartment and followed Cedric back up the train car.

Ron and Hermione didn’t turn up for nearly an hour, by which time the food trolley had already gone by. Harry and the others had finished their Pumpkin Pasties and were swapping Chocolate Frog cards, much to Luna’s delight since she usually didn’t have anyone willing to trade with her, when Ron and Hermione arrived in the compartment.

“I’m starving,” said Ron, stowing Pigwidgeon next to Hedwig, grabbing a Chocolate Frog from Harry and throwing himself into the seat next to him. He ripped open the wrapper, bit off the Frog’s head, and leaned back with his eyes closed as though he had a very exhausting morning.

“Well, there are two fifth-year prefects from each house,” said Hermione, looking thoroughly disgruntled as she took her seat. “Boy and girl from each.”

“And guess who’s a Slytherin prefect?” said Ron, still with his eyes closed.

“Draco,” Harry guessed at once.

“Course,” Ron said, stuffing the rest of the chocolate frog into his mouth and taking another.

“And that complete  _ cow _ Pansy Parkinson,” said Hermione viciously. “How she got to be prefect when she’s thicker than a concussed troll …”

“That reminds me,” said Harry. “I wanted to have a chat with Draco, see how his summer went.”

“Well, I’m sure he’ll show up to torment us eventually like he always does. You can talk to him then,” Ron said before taking another bite out of his second chocolate frog.

“You’re worried about Malfoy aren’t you?” Luna said thoughtfully.

Ron opened his eyes and stared at Luna, swallowing his mouthful of chocolate. “Why would Harry be worried about Malfoy? He’s a git!”

Harry sat up and picked Godric from where he was nosing through the wrappers scattered around the seats. “I’d better go see Draco now, rather than waiting for him to show up here. The conversation will probably go better without Ron there.”

“Wait, Harry!” Hermione said quickly as Harry moved towards the door. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go to the Slytherin’s compartment by yourself!”

Harry stopped and grinned over his shoulder at her. “Don’t worry, Hermione, I know what I’m doing.” Then he opened the door and disappeared towards the front of the train.

Harry moved up the train checking compartments until he found the one that Draco and his friends were in. He slid the door open and Draco looked up from where he was sitting beside Pansy Parkinson.

“What do you want, Potter?” he sneered. “You’d better watch yourself, or I’ll have to give you a detention. You see, I, unlike you, have been made a prefect, which means that I, unlike you, have the power to hand out punishments.”

“Yeah, Ron and Hermione told me that you and Pansy were Slytherin’s newest prefects, congratulations!” Harry said with a brief smile before growing serious again. “How was your summer, Draco?”

Draco scowled at Harry. “It was quite enjoyable, for your information,” he said stiffly. “Mother and I had a marvelous time at our villa in France.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Harry.

Draco’s scowl intensified. “You needn’t sound so relieved, Potter. It still would have been a good summer if I had stayed at home. I have no need to fear my father’s allies.”

“I hope that’s true, Draco,” Harry said slowly. “But … I’ve seen how the Dark Lord treats his  _ allies _ … I’m still willing to help you if you find that you have chosen the wrong side.”

Harry looked over at Pansy, glaring at him from beside Draco and then at Crabbe and Goyle sitting on the other side of the compartment. “And as before, that offer extends to anyone else who needs it. I’ll see you later, Draco. Good luck with your prefect duties, both of you.” And with one last smile for the Slytherins, he headed back down the train towards where his friends were waiting for him.

“Was that Potter I just saw leaving?” asked Blaise as he entered the compartment.

“Yes, he seems to think that I’ll be so pathetically grateful for his  _ concern _ that I would fall all over myself to betray my father and turn against the Dark Lord,” Draco sneered. “All those bludgers he’s taken to the head must have rattled his brains.”

Pansy laughed, “You’re right, Draco, Potter must be daft to expect you to fall for his little concerned act, but maybe you can use that.”

Draco frowned, “What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re a Slytherin, Dracky, act like it,” Pansy purred. “Pretend that Potter has got you considering switching sides so that he’ll let you get close to him. He’s just daft enough to do it and then you’ll be perfectly positioned to betray him to the Dark Lord when the time comes.”

“She’s right,” Blaise said thoughtfully. “But you’ll have to be careful. Potter might believe in a sudden change of heart but the Mudblood and the Blood Traitors will be suspicious. You’ll want to make it believable.”

Draco frowned, “If I let Potter make the first move … I won’t seek him out but I won’t push him away either. ... I bet I can make them believe I’m just trying to keep my options open, to make sure I’m on the winning side. It’s not like those Gryffindors will have any trouble believing that I’m willing to betray my family for my own advantage,” Draco’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile, “after all I’m a Slytherin.”


	11. Back at Hogwarts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and his friends arrive back at Hogwarts to find that there have been some changes in staffing.

“Where’s Hagrid?” said Harry as he stepped down onto the platform in Hogsmeade. Instead of Hagrid’s familiar call of “Firs’ years over here … Firs’ years …” they had been met with a brisk female voice calling, “First years line up over here, please! All first years to me!”

“I don’t know,” said Ginny, “but we’d better get out of the way, we’re blocking the door.”

“Oh yeah …”

Harry was quickly separated from the others as he moved off along the platform and out through the station. Godric hissed in displeasure at the way they were being jostled by the crowds of other students and curled up snugly around Harry’s neck to avoid being bumped. Harry squinted through the darkness for a glimpse of Hagrid as he made his way through the crowd, but there was no sign of him at all. When Harry reached the road he found Neville waiting for him, near the hundred or so horseless stagecoaches waiting to take the students above first year up to the castle.

“Where d’you reckon Hagrid is?” Harry asked Neville as he reached him.

“I don’t know,” Neville said. “Maybe he’s sick or something.”

“Where’s Pig?” said Ron’s voice, right behind Harry.

“Luna has him,” said Harry, turning around. Ron and Hermione had been on duty supervising the students disembarking from the train so they had left Crookshanks and Pigwidgeon with their friends. “We were just wondering where -”

“Hagrid is? I dunno,” said Ron, sounding worried. “He’d better be ok …”

Draco and his friends moved past them and pushed some timid-looking second years out of the way so they could get a coach to themselves. Seconds later Hermione emerged panting from the crowd.

“Malfoy was being absolutely foul to a first year back there, I swear I’m going to report him, he’s only had his badge three minutes and he’s using it to bully people worse than ever. I don’t know why you think he’s worth the effort, Harry … Where’s Crookshanks?”

“Ginny’s got him,” said Harry. “There she is …”

Ginny had just emerged from the crowd, clutching a squirming Crookshanks.

“Thanks,” said Hermione, relieving Ginny of the cat. “Come on, let’s get a carriage together before they all fill up. …”

“I haven’t got Pig yet!” Ron said, but Hermione was already heading off toward the nearest unoccupied coach.

“You two go ahead and help Hermione claim the carriage. I’ll wait with Ron for Luna to show up,” Harry said to Ginny and Neville.

It wasn’t long before Luna appeared holding Pigwidgeon’s cage in her arms; the tiny owl was twittering excitedly as usual.

“Here you are,” she said. “He’s a sweet little owl, isn’t he?”

“Er … yeah … He’s all right,” said Ron gruffly, taking the cage. “Well, come on then, let’s go find the others.”

They made their way to the carriage in which Hermione, Neville, and Ginny were already sitting. Harry stood back to let Ron and Luna climb in before following them, slamming the door behind him. He sat down beside Ron and was coaxing Godric to loosen his grip on his neck when the carriage started to move down the road towards Hogwarts. Once they had passed through the gates to the school ground, Harry leaned forward to try and see whether there were any lights on in Hagrid’s cabin by the Forbidden Forest, but the grounds were in complete darkness. 

As soon as they arrived at Hogwarts Castle, Harry hurried up the stone steps and through the Entrance Hall. As he made his way through the double doors he looked over at the staff table, searching for Hagrid, before he headed towards the Gryffindor table ignoring the whispers that followed his progress through the Hall.

“He’s not there,” he said to Ron, Hermione, and Neville as they found seats at the Gryffindor table.

Ron and Hermione scanned the staff table too, though it was obvious that Hagrid wasn’t there.

“He can’t have left,” said Ron, sounding slightly anxious.

“Of course he hasn’t,” said Harry firmly.

“You don’t think he’s … hurt, or anything, do you?” said Hermione uneasily.

“No,” said Harry at once.

“But where is he, then?”

Harry shrugged helplessly. He had no idea, although he was sure that Hagrid wouldn’t have left Hogwarts for good. He looked back up at the staff table.

“That must be the new Defense teacher,” he said, nodding at the woman sitting next to Dumbledore. “I suppose the witch we saw at the station will be covering Hagrid’s Care of Magical Creatures lessons until he gets back from wherever he is.”

“I hope that they are both good teachers,” said Hermione nervously. “After all we have our O.W.L.s this year and we need to be prepared, especially since our instruction in Defense Against the Dark Arts has been so spotty.”

Just then the witch who had been escorting the first years appeared behind the staff table and made her way to the seat that ought to have been Hagrid’s. A few seconds later, the doors from the entrance hall opened again and Professor McGonagall led in the first years, carrying a stool on which sat the Sorting Hat. She carefully placed the stool in front of the first years, who had lined up before the staff table, facing the rest of the students. The whole school waited with bated breath for the Sorting Hat’s song.

When the song was over mutters and whispers punctuated the applause that broke out.

“Branched out a bit this year, hasn’t it?” said Ron, his eyebrows raised.

“It’s right though,” responded Harry, thinking about what the Hat had said about the importance of unity inside Hogwarts against the deadly foes outside. “If we don’t reach out to the other houses, especially Slytherin, then Riddle will be able to take us down from within.”

“Do you really think that you can stop Malfoy and his friends from working for You-Know-   
Who?” Neville said skeptically.

“It’s worth a try, at least,” Harry responded. “Maybe if I can show them that there’s another way, they won’t feel that they have to join Riddle’s little cult, even if their families want them to.”

Neville mulled over this while they started on the deserts that had appeared while they were talking. When everyone had finished eating, Dumbledore got to his feet once more for the usual beginning of year announcements. The witch that had escorted the first-years to the castle turned out to be Professor Grubbly-Plank and she was going to be teaching Care of Magical Creatures. Harry exchanged slightly panicked looks with his friends after her introduction; Dumbledore had not said for how long Grubbly-Plank would be teaching. Then Dumbledore introduced the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Umbridge, and Harry temporarily forgot his worry about Hagrid’s absence.

“That’s the name of the witch who drafted that bit of anti-werewolf legislation two years ago,” Harry whispered to his friends. “It was already difficult enough for Moony to get work in the Wizarding world, now it’s almost impossible, thanks to her. But she works for Fudge, why would she be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts? ”

“Maybe, she just has the same name as that other witch? She might be a relative,” said Ron.

At that moment Dumbledore abruptly stopped talking, and they realized that Umbridge had stood up and was intending to make a speech. Harry’s heart sank as Umbridge spoke. Judging by the glazed faces surrounding him Harry could tell that, even if Umbridge wasn’t the bigot who worked for Fudge, she was going to be an awful teacher. Umbridge finally finished her speech and sat down again. Professor Dumbledore and the teachers politely applauded, but before the students, who had been caught off guard by the end of the speech had properly joined in, Professor Dumbledore had stood up again.

“Thank you very much, Professor Umbridge, that was most illuminating,” he said bowing his head to her. “Now - as I was saying -”

“Yes, it certainly was illuminating,” said Hermione in a low voice.

“You’re not telling me you enjoyed it?” Ron said quietly, turning a glazed face upon Hermione. “That was about the dullest speech I’ve ever heard, and I grew up with Percy.”

“I said illuminating, not enjoyable,” said Hermione. “It explained a lot.”

“You’ll have to fill us in on what it explained, Hermione,” said Harry. “I wasn’t able to follow any of it. Ron’s right, that was the most boring speech ever.”

“You notice she started by speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Magic, right?” said Hermione grimly. “And then she said all that stuff about ‘progress for progress’s sake must be discouraged’ and ‘pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited.’”

“Yeah, what does that mean?” said Ron impatiently.

“It means the Ministry’s interfering at Hogwarts,” said Hermione. “Fudge must have forced Dumbledore to take Umbridge on. It probably wasn’t difficult with how hard it must be to find a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor every year.”

“If she’s from the Ministry that also means that she is the Umbridge who works for Fudge,” said Harry grimly before turning his attention back to Dumbledore.

When Dumbledore was finished with the announcements and had dismissed the school, Hermione jumped up looking flustered.

“Ron, we’re supposed to show the first years where to go!”

“Oh, yeah,” said Ron, who had obviously forgotten. “Hey - hey you lot! Midgets!”

“ _ Ron! _ ”

“Well, they are, they’re titchy. …”

“I know, but you can’t call them midgets … First years!” Hermione called commandingly along the table. “This way, please!”

Harry grinned at the first years shyly making their way up the gap between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables. A blond boy nudged the boy next to him and whispered in his ear, then they both stared avidly at Harry. Harry’s grin disappeared and he abruptly turned to Neville.

“Let’s head upstairs,” he said and started making his way out of the hall, tossing a, “See you later,” over his shoulder to Ron and Hermione as he left. Quickly weaving through the crowd in the entrance hall with Neville in tow, Harry hurried up the marble staircase and then took a couple of concealed shortcuts that led towards Gryffindor tower. Soon he and Neville had left most of the crowds behind.

“What’s wrong, Harry?” Neville puffed as he hurried to keep up with Harry’s angry stride along the much emptier upstairs corridors. “You seem upset.”   
  


Harry sighed and slowed down to let his friend catch up. “Sorry, Neville. It’s just the way those two first years stared at me. I know I should be used to it by now, but last year ended with me being accused of cheating to win the Triwizard Tournament, and then the Daily Prophet’s been writing all that stuff about me and Moony this past summer. … Who knows what they were thinking about me!”

Neville nodded, “Yeah, I see what you mean, but at least they’ll get your side of the story tomorrow.”

“Yeah, if they even read  _ The Quibbler _ ,” Harry said bitterly.

“Some of them will, and then the story will spread from there,” Neville assured him. “And of course Hermione, Ron, and I will help you set the record straight, as well.”

“And I will bite them if they give you too much trouble,” Godric hissed sleepily from his perch on Harry’s shoulders.

“Thanks, Neville,” Harry smiled at his friend, feeling better about the year ahead. He then hissed to Godric, “Thank you, but please don’t bite anyone unless they are trying to hurt me.”

The memory of Neville’s support helped Harry hang onto his temper when Seamus told them that his mother hadn’t wanted him to come back to Hogwarts because of everything the  _ Daily Prophet  _ had said about Harry and Dumbledore over the summer. Taking a deep breath, Harry carefully placed his wand down on his bedside table and changed into his pajamas, reminding himself that Seamus’s mother had no way to know what had actually happened that night. 

He got into bed, but before he could pull the hangings closed around him, Seamus said, “Look … what  _ did _ happen that night?”

Harry looked over at Seamus and then at Dean, who was obviously listening from where he was bent over his trunk. 

“Well, I wasn’t cheating, for one! I wasn’t even trying to win the Tournament!” Harry burst out before stopping and taking another deep breath. “The full story is going to be in a special edition of  _ The Quibbler _ tomorrow, but basically; The Triwizard Cup at the centre of the maze was a portkey that took me to a graveyard where You-Know-Who and one of his followers were waiting for me. His follower tied me to a gravestone and took some of my blood for a ritual that gave You-Know-Who his body back. Then Sirius and Moony showed up to rescue me and we used the Cup to get back to Hogwarts again.” Harry hesitated and then decided not to say anything about Moody actually being a disguised Death Eater. “And that’s basically what happened …”, he finished lamely.

Dean and Seamus gaped at him and then Seamus scowled.

“You don’t seriously expect me to believe that You-Know-Who is back!” he said scornfully. “The _ Daily Prophet  _ was right, you will say anything that Lupin tells you to!”

Harry lost control of his temper and grabbed his wand off of his bedside table. “You take that back!” he shouted at Seamus.

“What’s going on?” said Ron, appearing in the doorway. His wide eyes traveled from Harry, who was kneeling on the bed pointing his wand at Seamus, to Seamus who was scowling at Harry with his fists clenched. 

“Seamus believes all that stuff the _ Daily Prophet’s  _ been saying about me and Moony!” Harry said angrily.

“Oh,” said Ron, comprehension dawning across his freckled face. “Oh … that.”

“Do you believe all the rubbish he’s coming out with about You-Know-Who?” Seamus demanded. “You reckon he’s telling the truth?”

“Yeah, I do!” said Ron angrily.

“So do I,” declared Neville suddenly. “And my gran says that stuff about Dumbledore losing his marbles is rubbish. She says it’s the  _ Daily Prophet _ that’s going downhill not Dumbledore. She’s canceled our subscription. My gran always said that You-Know-Who would come back one day. She says if Dumbledore says he’s back, he’s back.”

Harry smiled gratefully at Neville and Ron, then put his wand back down and turned to Seamus again.

“Anyways, as I said before, the full story of what happened will be in  _ The Quibbler _ tomorrow so you can read it there if you like,” he said in a deliberately calm voice. “Moony and Sirius saved my life that night, and Moony’s always has been there for me, ever since I started Hogwarts, so …” Harry’s face tightened and the anger he was feeling crept back into his voice. “You’d better watch what you say about him.”

Seamus vanished behind his bed curtains without another word, and Dean and Neville settled down into their beds, while Ron bustled around putting his things away. Harry checked to make sure the commotion hadn’t disturbed Godric sleeping in his Vivarium and then got back into bed. He stared up at the bed’s canopy, he had been expecting that there would be people at Hogwarts who wouldn’t believe him, after all the  _ Daily Prophet’s _ lies were much more comfortable than believing that Voldemort was back, but he hadn’t expected Seamus to be one of them. He had always liked Seamus and he had thought that the feeling was mutual, and he knew that Seamus and Dean had liked Remus, even after they discovered that he was a werewolf. He turned over and buried his face in his pillow. ‘I’ll talk to Dad about it tomorrow,’ he thought as he drifted off to sleep.


	12. Professor Umbridge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Quibbler's special edition is published. The Gryffindors have their first Defense Against the Dark Arts class of the new school year.

“I can’t wait to see how the article turned out,” Hermione said to Harry, Ron, and Neville as they met up with her in the common room the next morning. “It will be good to have the truth out there- Oh for heaven’s sake.” She stopped short staring at a new notice on the common room notice board.

Gallons of Galleons!

Pocket money failing to keep pace with your outgoing?

Like to earn a little extra gold?

Contact Fred and George Weasley,

Gryffindor common room

For simple, part-time, virtually painless jobs

(WE REGRET THAT ALL WORK IS UNDERTAKEN AT APPLICANTS OWN RISK)

“They are the limit,” said Hermione grimly, taking down the sign which Fred and George had pinned up over a poster giving the date of the first Hogsmeade weekend in October. “We’ll have to talk to them, Ron.”

Ron looked positively alarmed. “Why?”

“Because we’re prefects!” said Hermione, as they climbed out through the portrait hole. “It's up to us to stop this kind of thing!”

“You’re not the only prefects though,” said Neville. “Maybe you should let the seventh year prefects know about this. I’ll bet Fred and George would be more likely to listen to them than to you and Ron.”

Ron brightened. “Yeah, that’s right, Hermione. It’s not like Fred and George are going to listen to anything I say to them.”

Hermione huffed. “They haven’t done anything about the twins yet, as far as I can tell, but I suppose we should tell them.”

The conversation turned back to the  _ Quibbler _ article and the other students' attitudes about Harry and what had happened last spring. The boys told Hermione about Seamus and she said that Lavender had also taken the  _ Daily Prophet’s _ smear campaign seriously, and was convinced that they were lying about Voldemort’s return. As soon as they reached the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, Angelina Johnson marched up to Harry and announced that she had been made Quidditch captain and informed him that they were having tryouts for a new Keeper that Friday at five o'clock.

“I’d forgotten that Wood had left,” said Hermione vaguely, sitting down beside Ron and pulling a plate of toast toward her. “I suppose that will make quite a difference to the team?”

“I s’pose,” said Harry, taking the bench opposite. “He was a good Keeper. …”

“Still it won’t hurt to have some new blood, won’t it?” said Ron.

With a whoosh and a clatter, hundreds of owls came soaring in through the upper windows. They descended all over the Hall, bringing letters and packages to their owners, as well as delivering that day’s  _ Daily Prophet  _ and a special edition of  _ The Quibbler  _ to the papers’ subscribers. Harry hurriedly opened his copy of  _ The Quibbler _ and started to read.

“How’s it look?” asked Neville curiously.

“It’s excellent,” said Hermione with satisfaction from where she was perusing her own copy. “Rita Skeeter really is a good reporter as long as she has someone to keep her in line.”

Harry nodded. “She’s done a good job of telling exactly what happened that night, based on her interview with Moony, Sirius, and me. It’s all there … I just hope that it helps.”

Ron swallowed his mouthful of sausages. “It will,” he said. “And now if anyone else wants to know what happened, you can just show them the article.”

Harry glanced around the hall as he continued to eat. A few of the students had subscriptions to  _ The Quibbler _ and were showing the special edition they had received to their friends, looking over at Harry as they whispered about the contents of the article. As others became curious at what was so interesting in  _ The Quibbler  _ Luna became the centre of attention at the Ravenclaw table. Luna took this unusual attention calmly and merely handed over her copy of the special edition over her housemates to pass around. As  _ The Quibbler  _ circulated around the Great Hall it began to attract the attention of the teachers, none of whom subscribed to the magazine. Harry wondered how long it would take Professor Umbridge to find out about the article.

When Harry turned back to his friends he found that Hermione was buried in the  _ Daily Prophet _ , finishing with it just as Professor McGonagall reached them with their schedules.

“There’s nothing there,” she said, rolling up the newspaper and accepting her schedule from McGonagall. “Nothing about you or Moony or anything.”

“Look at today!” groaned Ron, when he saw his schedule. “History of Magic, double Potions, Divination, and Double Defense Against the Dark Arts … Binns, Snape, Trelawney, and that Umbridge woman all in one day!”

“You should have taken Arithmancy, like me and Hermione,” said Harry. “Then you wouldn’t have to put up with Trelawney at least.”

“No thanks, I’ve seen your Arithmancy assignments!” Ron said. “I’ll take Trelawney over that any day!”

“Sounds like you’ve got a tough day ahead of you, Ronniekins,” said George, arriving with Fred and squeezing onto the bench beside Harry.

“We can let you have a bit of Nosebleed Nougat cheap if you want to duck out of it,” said Fred glancing over Ron’s schedule for the day.

“Why’s it cheap?” said Ron suspiciously.

“Because you’ll keep bleeding until you shrivel, we haven’t got an antidote yet,” said George, helping himself to a kipper.

“Cheers,” said Ron moodily, pocketing his schedule, “but I think I’ll take the lessons.”

“And speaking of your products,’ said Hermione, eyeing Fred and George beadily, “you can’t advertise for testers on the Gryffindor notice board.”

“Says who?” said George, looking astonished.

“Says me,” said Hermione. “And I’ll be speaking to the other prefects about it as well.”

“You’ll be singing a different tune soon enough, Hermione,” said Fred, thickly buttering a crumpet. “You’re starting fifth year, you’ll be begging us for a Snackbox before long.”

“I know they’ll be working us hard because it’s our O.W.L. year,” said Hermione earnestly. “But that’s all the more reason not to slack off. What if you missed a class that covered something that you needed for the O.W.L? Remember when I missed the class on Cheering Charms back in third year, I had to work extra hard preparing for the exam, which did include Cheering Charms, to make up for missing that class.”

“Suit yourself,” said George with a shrug. “But you should know, half our year had minor breakdowns coming up to O.W.L.s. Tears and tantrums … Patricia Stimpson kept coming over faint-”

“Look, you two might not have cared about your O.W.L.s-” Hermione said shrilly.

“They got about three O.W.L.s each,” Ron interjected. “Mom was furious.”

“-but I don’t have a wealthy patron handing me sacks of gold to start my own business, and I can’t afford to skive off from classes. I think I will handle the stress just fine, without resorting to that.”

Harry gave a cough that sounded suspiciously like, ‘Third year’ and then tried to look innocent when Hermione glared at him.

History of Magic was as dull as usual, Harry was glad for Hermione’s ability to pay attention to the dullest lecture, otherwise, he and Ron would never have been able to pass that class. Potions started with a lecture from Professor Snape about their upcoming O.W.L. that Harry had already heard from his dad multiple times, then Professor Snape gave them the instructions for the potion they were to brew. That potion, the Draught of Peace, was one Harry had brewed with his dad that summer. He rather suspected that his dad had managed to have him brew most of the O.W.L potions over the course of the summer.

After lunch, Harry had a free period while Hermione was in Ancient Runes and Ron and Neville were in Divination, which he spent outside watching Godric hunt on the castle lawns. When it was time for Defense Against the Dark Arts Harry ran up to his dorm and left Godric in his Vivarium before meeting up with his friends outside the DADA classroom. Harry’s worst fears about the class were confirmed within the first few minutes. As he struggled to read the desperately dull textbook, Harry found himself fuming. He didn’t think he could take another year of substandard instruction in Defense Against the Dark Arts, especially not taught by Umbridge. When Hermione started questioning Umbridge’s course aims and the lack of practical instruction, Harry was more than ready to back her up. He did try to keep his temper under control and not stand out from the rest of the class but then she brought up the previous Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers.

“I do not wish to criticize the way things have been run in this school,” Umbridge said, an unconvincing smile stretching her wide mouth, “but you have been exposed to some very irresponsible wizards in this class, very irresponsible indeed - not to mention,” she gave a nasty little laugh, “extremely dangerous half-breeds.”

“Don’t talk about Moony like that!” roared Harry shooting up from his seat. “He isn’t -”

“ _ Sit down, Mr. Potter!” _

Harry simply raised his voice and kept talking, “Professor Lupin isn’t dangerous! He’s never hurt anyone while transformed and he was a lot better teacher than  _ you’ll _ ever be!”

Professor Umbridge stared at Harry with a grimly satisfied expression on her face.

“Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr. Potter. Now,  _ sit down! _ ”

The class was silent. Harry slowly sat down, still seething. Professor Umbridge stood and leaned towards Harry, her stubby-fingered hands splayed on her desk.

“You spend a lot of time with the half-breed during your school holidays, don’t you, Mr. Potter?”

“Don’t call him that!” Harry shouted.

“Mr. Potter, you have already lost your house ten points, do not make matters worse for yourself,” said Professor Umbridge. “Now, as was saying, I understand how you are feeling, Mr. Potter, although I cannot condone your current behaviour. It must be frightening for you to have Mr. Lupin hold so much power over you as your magical guardian, but I can help you.” She smiled at Harry, who stared back at her, horrified. “The Ministry can help you. You just need to tell us what he is threatening you with -”

Harry shot to his feet again. “Moony hasn’t threatened me with anything!”

Umbridge straightened up and folded her hands in front of her. “Come now, Mr. Potter dear,” she said patronisingly. “There is no need to continue lying for the werewolf anymore. Just admit to the truth and I will make sure that you are protected.”

“I AM NOT LYING!” roared Harry. “AND MOONY ISN’T EITHER!”

“Detention, Mr. Potter!” said Professor Umbridge triumphantly. “Tomorrow evening. Five o’clock. My office. I know that you are confused, but I cannot condone this kind of behaviour in my classroom.” She smiled sweetly at him. “You do not understand where your best interests lie, Mr. Potter, but I will teach you.”

“The only thing I want you to teach me is how to defend myself against the Dark Arts, that is your job after all. Not that it looks like you’re going to bother to even try!” Harry said, his voice shaking angrily.

Professor Umbridge’s face went blank. For a moment Harry thought she was going to scream at him. Then she said, in her softest, most sweetly girly voice, “Come here, Mr. Potter, dear.”

He kicked his chair aside, strode around Ron and Hermione, and up to the teacher’s desk. He could feel the rest of the class holding its breath. He felt so angry he did not care what happened next.

Professor Umbridge pulled a small roll of pink parchment out of her handbag, stretched it out on the desk, dipped her quill into a bottle of ink, and started to scribble, hunched over so that Harry could not see what she was writing. When she was done, she rolled up the parchment and tapped it with her wand; it sealed itself seamlessly so that he could not open it.

“Take this to Professor McGonagall, dear,” said Professor Umbridge, holding out the note to him.

Harry took it from her without a word and left the room, not even looking back at Ron and Hermione, and slamming the classroom door behind him. Harry stormed down the corridor, the note to McGonagall clutched tightly in his hand and down the nearest flight of stairs. Soon he had arrived at McGonagall's office and was handing her the note. Harry’s interview with his head of house did not go the way he was expecting it to, and shortly after the bell rang to signal the end of the lesson Harry found himself heading to his dorm to retrieve Godric, a biscuit in his hand. As he walked he thought about what his dad would have to say about earning a week's worth of detention on the first day of classes. Somehow, Harry did not think that he would be getting a biscuit from his dad, although he would probably get another lecture on reigning in his temper and keeping his head down.

That evening, after a quick visit with his dad and another lecture on keeping his temper and not getting into trouble, Harry retrieved the two-way mirror that Sirius had given to him from his trunk and flopped down on his bed.

“Sirius Black,” he said to the mirror, and soon his reflection had been replaced by Sirius.

“So how did your first day of classes go?” Sirius asked.

Harry groaned. “It was awful. This year's Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is worse than useless, and a bigot! She called Moony a dangerous half-breed!”

Sirius’s face darkened. “You didn’t let her get away with that, I hope?”

“Of course not!” Harry said indignantly.

“Good!” Sirius said approvingly only to be interrupted by Remus.

“Sirius! Don’t encourage Harry to get into trouble. He manages that enough on his own.”

Harry’s view in the mirror blurred briefly as if the mirror had been suddenly snatched out of Sirius' hand and then Remus was smiling at Harry through the mirror.

“I appreciate you standing up for me, Harry but I don’t want you to get in trouble on my account. Now, what happened?”

Harry told Remus and Sirius who now had his chin hooked over Remus’s shoulder so that he could still see Harry in the mirror, about what had happened in his DADA class, ending with the lecture from Professor McGonagall and the week of detentions. Sirius whistled.

"A whole week’s detention on the first day of classes. Not even your dad and I managed that.”

Remus frowned. “Sirius!”

“I know, I know, don’t encourage him. But you’ve got to admit that is pretty impressive.”

Remus' frown disappeared into a brief smile as he shrugged Sirius’s head off his shoulder. He then turned his attention back to Harry and arranged his features into an appropriately stern expression.

“I’ve already had two lectures about my behaviour and I’m going to apologize when I get to tonight’s detention,” Harry said quickly, heading off whatever Moony had been planning to say.

“See, Moony, he’s already had enough lectures, a little encouragement won’t hurt him,” Sirius said, draping himself across Remus’s back and looking over his shoulder at the mirror again. “Especially when he only got in trouble because he was defending you. I’m sure Harry thinks that was worth a few detentions.”

Harry nodded. “It was,” he declared, and then quickly changed the subject. “Rita Skeeter’s article got a lot of attention this morning. I’ve never seen Luna so popular with her housemates.”

“We’ve already received a number of letters of support from  _ The Quibbler’s  _ readers,” said Remus. “I’m sure we’ll have more forwarded to us by Lovegood soon, as well. I’ve made sure to have any letters for you sent to me instead so you won’t be drowned in mail. I’ll make arrangements to send them to The Professor if you would like to see them.”

Harry perked up. “That would be great! It will be nice to see proof that we’re getting through to someone.”

“I’ll do that then -”

Sirius interrupted Remus, “Since this year’s DADA teacher is useless, are you going to study the subject on your own, like Moony tells me you did in your second year? I’ve got some suggestions for you if you’d like them.”

“I hadn’t thought about it, but I guess I should,” said Harry thoughtfully. “Maybe I should start a study group. After all, I’m not the only one who’s going to need the extra help.”

They spent some time discussing the possibility of Harry starting a DADA study group before Harry said goodbye and carefully put away the mirror. Both Sirius and Remus had some helpful suggestions about what he needed to cover to be ready for his OWL’s and what spells might be most useful against Voldemort and his Death Eaters in the future. As Harry got ready for bed that night he found himself thinking about those suggestions and his idea of forming a study group so that he could share the help he was receiving with his classmates. He fell asleep with half-formed plans running through his head.


	13. Detention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second day of classes and Harry's first detention with Umbridge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm obviously not going to be able to stick to any kind of update schedule anymore but I'm still writing.

The next day found the fifth year Gryffindor’s being loaded down with even more work, as well as having to sit through even more lectures and the importance of doing well on their OWL’s. By lunchtime, Harry was beginning to feel sorry that he hadn’t gotten a start on the work assigned the day before during his spare period, especially since his week of detentions was going to seriously cut into his time to get all of the assignments done. After a hurried lunch, Harry, Ron, and Hermione went to the library to get through as much as they could of the assigned work before it was time to head to Care of Magical Creatures.

The day had become cool and breezy, and, as they walked down the sloping lawn toward Hagrid’s cabin on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, they felt the occasional drop of rain on their faces. Professor Grubbly-Plank stood waiting for the class some ten yards from Hagrid’s front door, a long trestle table in front of her laden with many twigs. As Harry and Ron reached her, a loud shout of laughter sounded behind them; turning, they saw Draco Malfoy striding towards them, surrounded by his usual gang of Slytherins. He had clearly just said something highly amusing, because Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, and the rest continued to snigger heartily until Blaise saw Harry watching them and nudged Draco in the side. Draco looked up and scowled but he said something to the others that caused them to stop laughing as they gathered around the trestle table, although Crabbe and Goyle were still smirking as they all looked over at Harry.

“Hello, Draco,” Harry said with a smile. “You and your friends seem to be in a good mood today.”

“Potter,” Draco responded stiffly, then his eyes gleamed and he gave a slight smirk. “I heard that you lost it in Defense Against the Dark Arts yesterday. A week's worth of detentions on the first day of class, that must be some kind of record. I do hope your Quidditch team won’t miss you too much on Friday.”

Harry groaned, “Oh, no! I forgot about the tryouts!”

At that moment Professor Grubbly-Plank called their attention to herself and started the lesson. She showed the class the bowtruckles she had brought for that day's lesson and told them a little bit about them. She then directed them to split into groups of three to study the bowtruckles more closely. As the class surged forward around the trestle table, Harry deliberately circled around the back so that he ended up right next to Professor Grubbly-Plank.

“Where’s Hagrid?” he asked her, while everyone else was choosing bowtruckles.

“Never you mind,” said Professor Grubbly-Plank repressively.

Draco Malfoy, who had been standing close enough to hear this exchange, leaned across Harry and seized the largest bowtruckle.

“I could tell you something about what the oaf’s been up to this summer if you’re interested,” Draco said in an undertone so that only Harry could hear him.

“What would you know about what Hagrid’s been up to?” Harry demanded quietly.

“It’s something I overheard after Mother and I got back to the Manor at the end of the summer. Do you want to hear it, or not?”

“Of course I do,” Harry responded.

“Then let's go join Granger and Weasley and I’ll tell you.”

Harry followed Draco over to where Ron and Hermione were squatting on the grass with their bowtruckle, some distance away.

“What are you doing here, Malfoy,” Ron demanded.

“I’ve got some information about our missing Professor, but if you’re not interested I can go rejoin my friends. It’s not like I care about what happened to the oaf,” Draco drawled, before starting to turn towards where Crabbe and Goyle were watching them from a few feet away.

“Of course we want to hear whatever you have to tell us, Draco,” Harry said quickly. “What did you hear about Hagrid?”

Draco smirked. “I heard that the oaf’s been messing about with stuff that was too  _ big  _ for him over the summer if you get my drift.” He looked at the trio’s puzzled expressions and rolled his eyes. “He and Madame Maxime were up in the mountains talking to the giants, trying to convince them to support Dumbledore instead of the Dark Lord, not that it did them any good. I didn’t hear anything about them being captured or killed so, as far as I know, that overgrown moron should be on his way back right now.” Draco’s lips curled into another smirk and he drawled, “Although, with the ministry’s determination to crack down on substandard teaching, he’ll probably be sent packing as soon as he gets back.”

Before any of the Gryffindor’s could respond, Draco strolled over to the waiting group of Slytherins and joined them, showing off the bowtruckle he had managed to snag. Harry pulled out some parchment and a quill and crouched down beside Ron and Hermione and started to sketch the bowtruckle they had selected. 

“At least we know what Hagrid’s been up to,” Harry said quietly. “I hope he gets back soon.”

“Are you really going to listen to Draco?” Ron exclaimed. “You can’t trust anything that git says!”

Harry shrugged, “I don’t see why he’d lie about it. Maybe I’m finally getting through to him.”

Ron snorted, “And maybe Muggles will fly. You heard what he said about Hagrid, whatever he’s doing he is  _ not  _ trying to be helpful.”

“Uh, Ron…” said Hermione, exchanging an amused look with Harry.

“What?”

“Never mind,” Hermione said with a sigh before returning to the topic of Draco. “Harry’s right, Malfoy doesn’t have any reason to lie about what he heard, maybe he is considering switching sides, or at least trying to keep his options open.”

Ron shook his head firmly, “There’s no way, not as long as his father supports Riddle, and from what Harry’s told us, that’s not likely to change.”

“I know you don’t like him but-” Harry said.

“That’s not- How I feel about Malfoy has nothing to do with this,” Ron said in a frustrated voice. “There is just no way that Malfoy will side with you against his father. He’s a pureblood, he would see it as betraying his family. Once the Head of the family chooses a side everyone else is supposed to fall in line, that’s just the way things are.”

“Sirius didn’t though,” said Harry. “He joined the Order even though his parents thought that Riddle had the right idea.”

“Sirius was blasted off the family tree,” Ron pointed out. “Do you really think Malfoy would risk that?”

Harry glared at Ron, “So I should just give up on him, then? Lucius Malfoy chose the wrong side before we were even born so I should just leave Draco to Riddle’s tender mercies? Draco might be a bit of a git but he doesn’t deserve that!”

“I didn’t say that. I don’t really understand why you think Draco’s worth bothering with but I don’t think you should give up on him. Just … be careful, ok? Remember that his loyalty to his family will come before anything else, so you can only trust him so far.”

Harry looked down at his sketch of the bowtruckle. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said as he picked up the bowtruckle to try to get it to stay still so he could finish the sketch. “I’m not going to stop trying to be his friends, but I won’t be stupid about it.”

After Care of Magical Creatures, the Gryffindors headed over to the greenhouses for Herbology where they met the fourth year Gryffindor-Ravenclaw class leaving the nearest greenhouse. Ginny said hi as she passed and then Luna Lovegood, who was lagging behind the rest of the group, saw Harry and made a beeline over to him.

“Dad wrote me this morning,” she said without so much as a preliminary hello. “He says that yesterday’s special edition has been extremely popular. He’s forwarded ever so many letters to Professor Lupin already.”

“That’s great, Luna,” Harry replied with a smile. “I love your earrings.”

Luna was wearing what appeared to be a pair of orange radishes for earrings, something which Parvati and Lavender seemed to find quite amusing by the way they were giggling and pointing at her earlobes.

“Thank you, Harry,” Luna responded in a dreamy voice before heading towards the castle, seemingly oblivious to the giggles behind her.

They made their way into the greenhouse for their class, after Luna left. Once they were all gathered inside, Ernie Macmillan approached Harry.

“I want you to know, Potter,” he said in a loud, carrying voice, “that I have read the Quibbler article and I personally believe you and Professor Lupin one hundred percent. My family has always stood firm behind Dumbledore, and so do I.” He relaxed slightly and continued, “Besides, with Diggory backing you up I don’t think you’ll find anyone in Hufflepuff who doesn’t believe that You-Know-Who is back and that Professor Lupin and Sirius Black rescued you from him that night.”

“Er - thanks very much, Ernie,” said Harry, slightly taken aback by the other boy's pompous matter but pleased with the support. As he turned back to Ron, Hermione, and Neville he noticed that Seamus looked both confused and defiant at hearing Ernie’s words. 

When Herbology was over, Harry went straight to dinner since he had his first detention with Umbridge at five o’clock. After a confrontation with Angelina Johnson, who was the new Quidditch captain that year, and a hurried supper, Harry bade his friends goodbye and reluctantly headed for the Umbridge’s office on the third floor, mentally rehearsing the apology that his dad had insisted he offer her. He was determined to be as sincere and conciliatory as possible, especially after Angelina’s little talk with him before dinner. If his apology was sincere enough, maybe Umbridge could be convinced to let him out of Friday’s detention and Angelina’s wrath would be appeased.

When Harry knocked on the door to Umbridge’s office she said, “Come in,” in a sugary voice and Harry entered cautiously. He looked around at the office which looked totally unrecognizable as the same room that he had seen under its three previous occupants. The surfaces had all been draped in lacy covers and cloths. There were several vases full of dried flowers, each residing on its own doily, and on one of the walls was a collection of ornamental plates, each decorated with a large technicolor kitten wearing a different bow around its neck. These were so foul that Harry stared at them, transfixed until Professor Umbridge spoke again.

“Good evening, Mr. Potter.”

Harry started and looked around. He had not noticed her at first because she was wearing a luridly flowered set of robes that blended only too well with the tablecloth on the desk behind her.

“Evening, Professor,” Harry said, as politely as he could. “Er … before we start, I wanted to apologize for my behaviour yesterday. I should not have spoken to you so rudely and I should not have cast aspersions on your ability to teach us Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

Professor Umbridge’s mouth stretched into a false looking smile. “I am glad to see that you are starting to realize where your best interests lie,” she said sweetly, “but I am afraid that you still need to serve your detentions. Sit down.”

She pointed at a small table draped in lace beside which she had drawn up a straight-backed chair. A piece of blank parchment lay on the table, apparently waiting for him. Harry didn’t move.

“Um … do you think I could skip Friday’s detention and do it on another night,” he said tentatively. “It’s just that I’m … I’m on the Gryffindor Quidditch team and we’re having tryouts that night …” he trailed off, as he realized that it was no good.

“Oh no,” said Umbridge, smiling so widely that she looked as though she had just swallowed a particularly juicy fly. “Oh no, no, no. This is your punishment for your disrespectful, attention-seeking behaviour, Mr. Potter, and punishment certainly cannot be adjusted to suit the guilty one’s convenience. No, you will come here at five o’clock tomorrow and the next day and on Friday too, and you will do your detentions as planned. I think it rather a good thing that you are missing something you really want to do. It ought to reinforce the lesson I am trying to teach you.”

Harry shrugged and sat down. He hadn’t really expected that to work, after all the only teacher who was likely to care about Gryffindor’s Quidditch tryouts was Professor McGonagall, but she had already made it clear that she wasn’t going to interfere with the detentions that Umbridge chose to assign. Umbridge looked slightly disappointed that Harry had reacted so well to her words as she told him that he would be doing lines for her. Harry took the black quill that she had handed him and waited for her to tell him what to write.

Several hours later Harry left Umbridge’s office cradling his right hand. He looked around the deserted corridors and slowly walked up the corridor, then when he had turned the corner and was sure that she could not hear him, he pulled on his invisibility cloak and broke into a run. He didn’t stop until he had reached the door to his dad’s quarters. Hoping his dad was still up Harry pounded on the door with his left hand. He didn’t have long to wait before Severus opened the door and stood aside to let his invisible son in.

“What’s going on, Harry? It’s long past your curfew, why aren’t you in bed?” Severus demanded once Harry had emerged from under his cloak.

“I just finished my detention with Umbridge,” Harry said, shaking slightly. “She made me write lines, with my own blood!” Harry thrust his hand out with the back towards his startled dad.

Severus carefully took Harry’s hand in his own and frowned at the red, raw skin. “How? What did she do?”

“She made me use this black quill that cut into the back of my hand whenever I wrote with it. The cuts healed up instantly but she wouldn’t let me stop until they stopped healing properly.” Harry blinked back tears, still trembling.

“You’d better sit down,” Severus said, guiding Harry to the couch and wrapping him in the blanket that was lying on it. “I’ll go get some Murtlap Essence, for your hand.”

Soon Harry had his hand soaking in Murtlap Essence, while he ate a biscuit that his dad had brought along with it.

“I don’t want to do that again,” he said quietly after he finished the cookie. He shuddered looking down at his hand, which was feeling much better. “I’m not sure I can take another night like that.”

“Don’t worry,” Severus said, as he lifted Harry’s hand out of the Murtlap Essence and examined it. “You won’t have to, I’ll make sure of that. Now your hand is looking much better so you had better head back up to bed. It’s late and you need your sleep.”

Once Harry had disappeared under the invisibility cloak again and headed up to bed, Snape threw a pinch of Floo powder into his fireplace and snapped out, “12 Grimmauld Place”. Sticking his head into the green flames, he loudly called for Moony and Sirius.

"What’s wrong, Sev?” Remus asked, running into the room, with Sirius on his heels. “Has something happened to Harry?”

Severus quickly explained what Harry had told him about his detention with Umbridge.

“You’d better come through, Sev,” said Sirius, when he was finished. “We are going to make that toad pay for what she’s done to my godson.”

Severus stepped through the fire and smiled. “I thought you would feel that way. I already have some ideas but I didn’t want to deprive you and Moony of the chance to help.”


	14. The Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus implements the first stages of the plan to make Umbridge pay for her treatment of Harry.

“Wake up, Master! It is time to get up if you is wanting to have breakfast in the Great Hall.”

Severus opened his eyes to the sight of Dobby standing beside his bed holding a tray with a cup of tea steaming on it. With a groan he sat up and took the tea, he had not had nearly enough sleep after the previous night’s planning session with Moony and Sirius.

“Thank you, Dobby,” he said after he had a sip of his tea. “Were you able to do what I asked of you? I hope the other house-elves didn’t give you any problems.”

“Dobby is being doing what Master is asking Dobby to do,” the house-elf replied. “The other house-elves is being no problem. They all be knowing about what Professor Umbridge be doing to Harry Potter, they will not be interfering with anything Master be asking of Dobby.”

“That’s good to hear. Thank you, Dobby.”

When Severus entered the Great Hall he made his way to the head table and sat down beside Umbridge, who was already there. After helping himself to some toast, he leaned towards her.

“You had Potter in detention for quite a while last night, Professor Umbridge,” he said quietly. “I hope you were able to find an … appropriate punishment for his insolence.”

“I had him writing lines,” Umbridge said in her girlish voice, as she daintily cut up the sausage on her plate.

Snape frowned, “Lines are an adequate punishment, I suppose,” he said dismissively, “although I prefer something a little more ... inventive, especially for Potter.” Severus glared at where Harry sat with his friends at the Gryffindor table. “You will find that most punishments fail to make a dent in Potter’s arrogance ... although I have found ways to get his attention ...”

Umbridge’s wide mouth spread into a satisfied smile. “I do believe that his punishment had made an  _ impression _ on him by the end of the evening,” she said, “and I have three more detentions to make sure that the lesson sinks in.”

Severus watched out of the corner of his eye as Umbridge took a sip of her tea. “If you say so … although Potter doesn’t look very chastened ... ”

And indeed, Harry didn’t look like his seven hours of detention the night before had affected him much as he had his breakfast, reading bits of the letters that Remus had forwarded to him from  _ The Quibbler _ readers out loud to his friends while they ate. Sensing his teachers’ eyes on him, Harry looked up at the head table. He glared at Umbridge defiantly before his gaze shifted to meet Severus’s. As soon as their eyes met, Harry flinched and quickly turned his attention back to his breakfast. Severus smirked.

“Severus, what have you done to Mr. Potter this time?”

Severus turned to see McGonagall frowning at him from her seat beside him.

“I did nothing to Potter, Minerva,” he said silkily. “Although I may have mentioned my plans for his next detention with me when I caught him wandering around the castle after curfew last night. I thought knowing what was in store for him might give him an incentive to actually follow the rules for once.”

McGonagall’s frown deepened, “I think we need to have another talk about what constitutes an acceptable punishment, Severus. The students shouldn’t flinch when they see you.”

Severus sneered, “At least I’ve managed to make an impression on Potter, despite his arrogance.” He abruptly pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a class to prepare for.”

“Oi, what’s going on, mate?” Ron said quietly... “I know Snape can be bloody terrifying but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you react like that before.”

Harry shrugged. “I’m just following my instructions. Apparently, it’s all part of the plan.”

Hermione’s eyes narrowed. “Instructions from whom? What plan?”

“Sirius contacted me this morning,” Harry said with a quick glance around them. “I’ll tell you about it later, ok? I want to try to get in some practice with the Vanishing spells before heading to Arithmancy.”

Ron groaned and looked down at the parchment he had been scribbling on while they ate their breakfast. “I think I’ve got enough down for Divination but I should probably copy it out on a clean piece of parchment. I’ve said I dreamed that I was buying a new pair of shoes, she can’t make anything weird out of that, can she?”

He looked over at Neville who shrugged, “Seems pretty safe to me.”

Hermione huffed, “You’re supposed to write about your actual dreams, Ron. How are you going to learn anything if you just make stuff up? And why are you doing that now, anyway? Where were you last night?”

Ron muttered something about “doing other stuff” before stuffing a slice of buttered toast into his mouth and hurrying away. Hermione and Neville accompanied Harry to an empty classroom and helped him practice his Vanishing spells for Transfiguration until it was time to head to their first class of the day. Arithmancy started with the usual speech about their O.W.L.s and ended with yet more homework being assigned. Harry desperately hoped that whatever plan his dad had cooked up with Moony and Sirius would work, especially after they received even more homework from McGonagall in their next class, he was never going to get everything done if he had to spend another seven hours in detention with Umbridge that evening.

After a hurried lunch, Harry headed to the library to finish up his Bowtruckle sketch. He was almost finished when his friends sat down at his table.

“So what was that about this morning?” asked Ron. “Why’d Sirius want you to act like you’re afraid of Snape?”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t really know any of the details, but it’s all part of a plan to make sure that I won’t have to serve detention with Umbridge anymore.”

“Was detention with Umbridge really that bad?” Neville asked.

Harry rubbed the back of his right hand with his left as he told his friends about his detention. 

“The old hag!” Ron said in a revolted voice. “She’s sick! You need to tell McGonagall or The Professor what she’s doing!”

“I did. The Professor made me soak my hand in some Murtlap Essence so it’s fine now. I guess he also talked to Moony and Sirius after I went to bed, and they came up with the plan that Sirius called me about this morning. I hope it works,” Harry said looking down at his completed Bowtruckle sketch. “I don’t think I can take another night like that ... not to mention not having any time to get my homework done. I guess I’ll find out this evening.”

“It’ll work,” said Ron confidently. “Think of all the things that Moony and Sirius pulled off when they were at school. Getting one teacher out of the way so that she can’t supervise your detentions will be a piece of cake for them, especially with The Professor’s help.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Harry said with a grateful smile at Ron, as he rolled up his sketch and stuffed it into his bag.

“C’mon, we’d better get going if we don’t want to be late for Herbology,” said Neville.

As they left the library, Godric hissed fiercely from his position coiled around Harry’s neck, “I will bite that toad-woman if she hurts you again!”

“Thank you,” Harry hissed back. “But I don’t want you to get in trouble for biting one of my teachers. Then I might not get to keep you with me at Hogwarts. I’m sure dad’s plan will work.”

The last class of the day was almost done when there was a knock on the door of the potions classroom. Severus opened the door with a flick of his wand and glared at the third year Ravenclaw who was standing there.

“What do you want, Baker?” he snapped.

“Professor Snape, Madam Pomfrey wants you in the hospital wing right away!” blurted out the Ravenclaw with an air of suppressed excitement. “Professor Umbridge is ever so sick-”

“That’s enough!” Severus interrupted. “You’ve delivered your message, there is no need to stand there gossiping.” The student scurried away and Severus turned to his sixth-year NEWT class. “Finish cleaning up, and then you may leave. I expect to find everything clean and in its proper place when I return.”

Soon, Severus swept into the hospital wing where a distressed looking Madam Pomfrey was waiting for him.

“Professor Umbridge is presenting some very worrying symptoms, Severus, but I don’t seem to be able to find a cause for them,” she said as soon as she saw him. “She seems convinced that she has been poisoned somehow. I was hoping you could check to see if that’s the case or if she has been put under some kind of curse.”

Severus snorted. “And how is she supposed to have been poisoned? The house-elves would never allow anything to be added to the food.” He looked at Umbridge, who was laying in one of the beds looking extremely pale and nauseated. “Unless you obtained something from somewhere  _ other _ than the Hogwarts kitchens?”

Umbridge weakly shook her head and opened her mouth to answer only to quickly shut it again.

“What symptoms has she displayed?” Severus asked in a bored tone as he began to wave his wand in an intricate pattern over Umbridge.

“She has had several episodes of vomiting, along with a high fever. I would think that she merely had a severe stomach bug but none of the usual remedies have worked to curb the nausea and vomiting. Then there is the fact that she fainted shortly after arriving at the hospital wing, although she did recover consciousness fairly quickly.”

As Severus listened to Poppy list the symptoms that Umbridge was displaying he reflected that it was just as well that he had left out the active ingredient from the Weasley’s Nosebleed Nougats when he brewed the potion that he had Dobby put in Umbridge’s morning tea, no matter how satisfying it would have been to add massive blood loss on top of the other maladies the witch was suffering from. He made a show of studying the results of his diagnostic spell.

“I can find no evidence of poison,” he said shortly before performing another elaborate spell. “Nor is there any evidence of an active curse. However, I do have a potion that might help with the nausea.” Snape reached into his robes and retrieved his shrunken potions kit.

“Thank you, Severus,” Madam Pomfrey said, accepting the potion from him. “If this potion works then I think that we can safely wait and see if the symptoms recede on their own. Otherwise, I will have to send to St. Mungos to have Professor Umbridge treated there instead. I am sure that they would be able to get to the bottom of this.”

Severus watched in satisfaction as Umbridge fainted again before Pomfrey could give her the potion. When she had recovered consciousness he urged her to take the potion and rest.

“Dumbledore and McGonagall will ensure that your classes are covered until you are feeling better,” he assured the ill witch, “and I will take over Potter’s detentions myself,” Severus smirked and left the infirmary in a swirl of black fabric.

Harry had just returned to the castle after his Care of Magical Creatures class, intent on getting to the Great Hall as quickly as possible so that he could get dinner before his five o’clock detention when he was intercepted by Colin Creevy.

“Hey Harry, did you hear? Professor Umbridge is in the Hospital Wing. Apparently, she started throwing up halfway through her last class of the day, she was so sick that someone had to go and fetch Madam Pomfrey to come and get her. Joe said that Pomfrey couldn’t figure out what was wrong, so she sent him to get Snape. Do you think that someone poisoned her? Why else would Pomfrey want Snape, after all?”

“I’m sure that Madam Pomfrey was just eliminating the possibility of poison,” Hermione said in a reasonable tone. “After all, who would want to poison a Hogwarts professor?”

“Anyone who had to sit through one of her lectures, maybe,” said Ron in an undertone. “She’s even worse than Binns.” Harry and Neville laughed while Hermione scowled at them, then Ron brightened and spoke again at a normal volume. “I guess this means you don’t have detention tonight, after all. Maybe the old toad will stay sick long enough for you to be able to attend the tryouts on Friday, too.”

“I’m afraid the Gryffindor Quidditch team will still have to manage without Potter’s presence this Friday.”

The teens twisted around at the sound of their Potion Professor’s voice. Neville later maintained that he most definitely did not squeak at suddenly finding Snape looming over him, although the others all knew what they had heard.

“I see that you have heard of Professor Umbridge’s unfortunate indisposition,” Severus continued dryly. “Rather than allowing you to postpone your punishment until she has recovered, Potter, I will be taking over your detentions.”

Harry swallowed and said hesitantly, “So I should come to  _ your _ office at five o’clock then, Professor?”

Snape smirked. “No, since you are done with your classes for the day I see no need to wait. Your detention starts  _ now _ , Potter.”

“What - what about dinner,” Harry faltered.

Snape’s smirk turned into a scowl. “I do not enjoy repeating myself, Potter! Come with me now!”

And without another word Severus strode off towards the stairs to the dungeon. Harry turned to his friends.

“I guess I’ll see you guys later if I survive,” he said with a weak grin before hurrying after his dad.

Soon they were seated in Severus’s office enjoying a large dinner that Dobby had laid out for them. When they had finished eating, Harry got out his bag and finished up his moonstone essay, before starting on the questions that McGonagall had assigned them. Harry was just finishing up the essay on Bowtruckles for Professor Grubbly-Plank when Sirius’s head appeared in the fire.

“So, how’d it go?” Sirius said eagerly. “It must have worked since Harry’s here! Hi, Harry!”

“Hi, Sirius,” Harry responded with a grin.

“Everything went exactly to plan,” Severus said with satisfaction. “Umbridge is currently in the hospital wing with a fever and nausea as well as random fainting spells. I did give Pomfrey a weak antidote for the Puking Pastille effect since I didn’t want her to feel obligated to request help from St. Mungos due to the constant vomiting. Umbridge can now keep down bland foods … with difficulty. I will give Dobby the cure on Friday so that he can slip it into her breakfast tea on Saturday morning.”

“That’s perfect! I have a lot of other ideas on what we can do to her next week,” said Sirius.

“I think having Dobby rearrange her furniture every day as we had discussed will do for the present,” said Severus dryly.

“Dobby’s going to rearrange Umbridge’s furniture?” Harry asked.

“Yep,” said Sirius. “He’s going to move everything by an inch or so. Just enough so that she should be running into things whenever she moves around in her quarters or office. Then when she gets used to their new positions he’ll move them back.”

“That should be enough for September. We can discuss any other ideas you have later,” Severus said.

“Why don’t you have Dobby mirror the position of all the furniture in her rooms?” Harry suggested. “That would be brilliant, especially if we can get everyone else to pretend like nothing’s changed.”

Sirius laughed, “That’s a great idea, Prongslet! Worthy of a Marauder!”

“You and Moony might as well come through if you’re going to insist on talking about it,” said Severus. “Harry has finished his assignments and there’s still some time before I can release him, so he has time to visit.”

Sirius's head disappeared and soon he and Moony were stepping out of the green flames in the fireplace. It was even later than it had been the day before when Harry finally made his way back to the Gryffindor tower and his bed, but he was in a much better mood. He sleepily returned Godric to his vivarium before collapsing in his bed fully clothed. He was going to be absolutely exhausted the next day but it had been worth it. His assignments were all done, he had had a good visit with Sirius and Moony and he was never going to have to face detention with Umbridge again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone has any suggestions for anything else Severus, Sirius, and Moony could do to Umbridge, please leave a comment.


	15. Detentions and Quidditch Tryouts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has his detentions with his dad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to celebrate my birthday by giving you all another chapter.

Severus was sleepily sipping his morning cup of tea, trying desperately to wake up enough for his morning classes when green flames flared in the fireplace and McGonagall's head appeared.

“Are you decent, Severus,” she said briskly. “I need to talk to you.”

“Come on through, Minerva,” Severus said, straightening up from his exhausted slouch and levitating another cup out of the cupboard.

The Deputy Headmistress stepped through and fixed her stern gaze on him.

“What’s this I hear about you dragging Mr. Potter off for detention before he had his dinner last night?” she scolded. “You can’t deprive the students of their meals like that, Severus!”

Severus calmly poured a cup of tea and levitated it over to the witch. “I fed him once we got to my office, Minerva,” he assured her as she accepted the tea. “The only thing I deprived Potter of was the chance to socialize with his friends.”

Minerva sighed as she sat down and sipped her tea. “I’m glad to hear that. What did you have him doing last night?” she added warily. Severus could tell that she was remembering Harry’s reaction to him at breakfast the day before.

“I had him write out the properties of various potion ingredients,” said Severus smoothly. “I also took the opportunity to give him another lesson in the art of Occlumency, as I had warned him I would do whenever he had detention with me this year.”

Minerva’s face cleared, “Is that what had him look so spooked, yesterday morning? The reminder that he had to continue with the Occlumency lessons with you?”

“I would imagine so. Until it is mastered, learning Occlumency leaves the student’s every memory exposed to their instructor. This can be … discomfiting ... even when the student trusts his instructor, and Potter has little reason to trust me.”

“And who’s fault is that!” Minerva snapped. She frowned at Severus over her teacup. “I know you and James never got along and Harry does look a lot like his father, but I would have thought that you would have been willing to treat him well for Lily’s sake, Severus. I know how much she meant to you.”

Severus stiffened, his face impassive. “That was a long time ago,” he said before draining his teacup and abruptly standing up. “Now if you’ll excuse me I have classes to get ready for.”

McGonagall put down her cup and stood up as well. “I would like you to cover some of Professor Umbridge’s classes while she is unwell,” she said briskly as she stood, pulling a time turner and a schedule out from the pocket of her robe.

Placing them on the table she tossed a pinch of Floo powder into the fireplace and disappeared into the flames. Severus picked up the time turner and studied Umbridge’s class schedule. He was tempted to use the time turner right then so that he could return to bed but decided that since he was already up and dressed he might as well get through his morning classes first. Once they were done he could give himself a few extra hours so that he had time for a nap and to put together some Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson plans before covering Umbridge’s morning classes.

By the time he was finished with the last class he had to teach that day, Severus was quite ready for the day to be over. Rather than make his way up to the Great Hall for dinner only to have to come back down again, Severus decided to have Dobby bring his supper to his office so that he could just wait there for Harry to arrive for his detention. When five o’clock rolled around, and Harry did arrive, Severus could see that his son was also quite tired from two late nights in a row, so he elected to keep the detention relatively short that night. A couple of hours was enough to ensure that Harry was caught up with his schoolwork and to fit in a short Occlumency lesson before Severus let him go.

“Do I have to come back tomorrow?” asked Harry as he shoved his books back into his school bag. “Angelina’s pretty mad that I won’t be able to make it to tryouts. She really wanted all of the team to be there.”

“I wasn’t the one who assigned these detentions, Harry, I’m just supervising them. You know that means that I can’t just let you out of them,” Severus replied with a small smile. “I’m sorry but your team will just have to manage without you.”

Harry glared at his dad. “You’re not sorry at all, are you.”

“I am sorry that you’re going to have to miss your first chance to fly with your Quidditch team this year but I’m not sorry that they’re going to have to select their new keeper without your help. Anything to improve my Slytherins’ chance of getting that cup,” Severus admitted. “Now off to bed with you before you fall asleep on your feet.”

On his way back to the tower, Harry found Ron lurking behind a statue of Lachlan the Lanky, clutching his broomstick. Ron admitted that he had been practising in preparation for trying out for the Keeper position that was open on the Gryffindor team. Harry thought that this was brilliant, it would be great to have Ron on the team and he had done quite well as Keeper at Grimmauld Place that summer.

“Just don’t let Fred and George get to you, and you’ll do great!” Harry said as they made their way to the portrait of the Fat Lady. “I won’t be there to watch you try out but I’ll be cheering you on in spirit!”

“Thanks,” said Ron. “I wish you could be there. Can’t you convince Snape to let you off tomorrow?”

“I tried,” said Harry, “but no go. He didn’t assign the detention so he can’t cancel it. Not that he would even if he could, anything to give the Slytherins a better chance at the cup, right.”

Ron shook his head. “That must be so weird,” he said in a whisper, “having your dad cheer against you at the games.”

Harry quickly looked around to make sure that there was no one in earshot and then shrugged. “At least Moony always cheers for me, and it’s not like it’s anything personal, Dad just hates to lose. Especially since he’s got that ongoing bet with McGonagall over whose team will win the cup each year.”

They had reached the Fat Lady by this time and they had to drop the conversation. They split up after climbing through the portrait hole, Ron went to get Hermione’s help with the work he had been neglecting, while Harry made his way up to bed.

The next day Harry reluctantly headed down to his dad’s dungeon office while the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team went out to the pitch, along with the hopeful students trying out for Keeper. Harry almost wished he was having detention with Umbridge again that night, as painful as using the Black Quill was at least there he would have had a view of the Quidditch pitch. He pushed open the door to Snape’s office and trudged inside. To his surprise, there was a large mirror set up on his dad’s desk facing the seat where Harry usually sat to work on his assignments.

“Sit down, Harry,” Severus said with a smile. “You don’t want to miss any of the tryouts, do you?”

And as Harry sat down in his seat, Severus tapped the mirror with his wand and Harry watched the reflection of the office waver and disappear. Soon the distortion cleared and the mirror displayed a view of the Quidditch pitch instead.

“There, now you can watch the tryouts, even if you can’t participate in them, and I can look for weaknesses for my Slytherins to exploit,” Severus said with satisfaction, as he levitated his desk chair over to beside Harry and settled down in it.

A few hours later, when the tryouts were finished and night had fallen, Harry hurried up the stairs to Gryffindor tower, eager to find out who Angelina had picked to be their new keeper. A couple of the hopefuls had done better than Ron but Harry still thought that Ron had done well enough to have a chance. He had just reached the Portrait hole when he felt pain sear across the scar on his forehead and he had a most peculiar sensation somewhere around his midriff. The pain disappeared as suddenly as it had hit.

“Mimbulus Mimbletonia,” Harry said, still shaken from the sudden pain. When the portrait swung open he was met by a roar of sound and an excited Ron.

“Harry, I did it, I’m in, I’m Keeper!”

“Brilliant! I knew you could do it.” Harry beamed at his friend, delighted at the news.

Katie Bell called Ron away to try on Oliver’s old robes, and Angelina came over to Harry to talk about Ron. Harry assuring the Quidditch captain that he would work with Ron to improve his Keeping and that he would definitely be there for their first practice the next day. He then wandered over to where Hermione was confronting the twins. As he crossed the common room Harry noticed some first years clustered near the arguing trio who all looked like they had recently suffered from nosebleeds.

“It’s perfectly safe,” Fred was protesting. “We test everything on ourselves before offering them to anyone else. These tests are just to make sure that our products work the same for everyone.”

“You’ve given Sirius samples of all this stuff that you’re testing, haven’t you?” Harry asked, remembering what Sirius had told him about the inspiration for the potion that Dobby had slipped into Umbridge’s tea on Tuesday morning.

George nodded. “Yeah, that was part of our deal. He gets a sample of all products that are ready for testing.”

“That means that The Professor has had a chance to look at all of them,” Harry informed Hermione. “I’m sure that if they weren’t safe he would have done something about it by now, so you don’t need to worry about it.” He pulled Hermione away from the twins. “I need to tell you something,” he told her quietly as lead her towards a couple of empty chairs sitting near the fire.

Once they were sitting down Harry told Hermione about the pain he had felt in his scar just before he had entered the common room. Hermione frowned thoughtfully.

“Didn’t Dumbledore say that the pain in your scar had to do with what Riddle was feeling at the time when your scar hurt last year? I think you should tell The Professor that your scar hurt.”

“I’ll tell Sirius when I talk to him tonight,” Harry said. “Speaking of which, I think I’m going to go up to the dorm and call him now. Tell Ron for me, will you?”

“I will,” Hermione said as Harry got up to head to his dorm room.

Once he was in his dorm, Harry returned Godric to his Vivarium before changing into his pajamas and fishing the mirror out of his trunk. 

“How did the tryouts go?” Sirius asked as soon as he had answered his mirror. “Did Sev let you go?”

“No, but he did set up a way for me to watch them at least,” Harry said. “Ron’s our new Keeper.”

“I’m not surprised,” Sirius said. “He was pretty good during our games over the summer, if a little inconsistent. A bit of work with the team and I’m sure he’ll be an amazing Keeper. You’ll have to congratulate him for me.”

Harry smiled at his godfather. “I will,” he promised. “Is Moony around?”

“No, he’s off on a mission for the Order. I’ve been bugging Dumbledore about giving me a mission as well, now that you’re back at school, but apparently I’m needed to stay in headquarters and take messages.”

Harry’s smile dropped at the reminder of Riddle and the Order's efforts to stop him before he could regain the power he had lost. He also remembered that he had something he needed to tell his godfather.

“My scar hurt again today when I was on my way back to the tower after my detention. It felt like …” Harry paused as he thought about the sensation that had accompanied the pain. “It felt like Riddle was pleased about something. Like he was happy about something that had happened.”

Sirius frowned. “If Riddle is happy, that doesn’t bode well for the Order. I’ll let the others know, maybe Sev will have some idea what happened. You’ve been doing your Occlumency exercises, right?”

“Of course, and I had another lesson with Dad yesterday.”

“Good. Now, do you have any moves you’ve been working on for the new Quidditch season?”

Harry gladly accepted the change of topic and chatted with Sirius about Quidditch until he was interrupted in the middle of a sentence by an enormous yawn. Sirius laughed.

“I think we’d better say goodnight so that you can get to sleep.”

“Good night, Sirius,” Harry said with another yawn. Carefully putting the mirror back in his trunk Harry curled up under his covers and was soon fast asleep.


	16. Quidditch Practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ron has his first Quidditch practice with the team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took a month but I did finally get another chapter finished. Hopefully, the next one won't take as long.

Hermione pounced on Harry as soon as he reached the bottom of the stairs from the boys' dorms.

“Did you tell Sirius about the pain in your scar?”

“Of course I did! I said I would!” Harry responded indignantly.

“You’re scar hurt again yesterday?” Ron asked.

Harry nodded “Yeah, yesterday evening just before I reached the common room. I think Riddle was feeling happy about something. I told Sirius and he’s going to see if anyone in the Order has any idea what Riddle’s so happy about.”

Harry’s friends silently absorbed the implications of Voldemort being happy as they climbed through the portrait hole and made their way down to the Great Hall. After they had sat down at the Gryffindor table and helped themselves to breakfast, Ron broke the silence.

“Listen ...?” he said to Harry. “You don’t fancy going out to the Quidditch pitch a bit early with me, do you? Just to -er- give me some practice before training? So, I can, you know, get my eye in a bit …”

“Yeah, okay,” Harry agreed.

“Look, I don’t think you should, said Hermione seriously, “you’re both really behind on homework as it is.”

“I’m pretty well caught up, Hermione. There’ll be plenty of time for me to finish it up tomorrow,” Harry assured her. “And I can help Ron to catch up with his assignments then as well.”

Hermione looked like she was about to argue with him, but she was cut off by the arrival of the morning post. Hermione accepted her copy of the  _ Daily Prophet  _ from the screech owl delivering it, pushing a knut into the leather pouch strapped to its leg and scanned the front page critically. Neville and Harry discussed setting up their tutoring sessions again for the new year while Ron stared up at the high windows, looking slightly preoccupied.

“Look at this!” Hermione suddenly, spreading the paper out in front of Harry.

Ron and Neville craned their necks to look at the article that Hermione was pointing to.

“Sturgis Podmore?” said Ron slowly, “but he’s that bloke who looks like his head’s been thatched, isn’t he? He’s one of the Ord-”

“Ron,  _ shh _ !” said Hermione, casting a terrified look around them.

“But what was he doing trying to force his way through a door in the Ministry then?” whispered Neville. “Was he doing something for the Order?”

“Sturgis was supposed to come and see us off, remember?” said Harry slowly. “That’s why we got to King’s Cross so late. Moody was waiting for him but he didn’t turn up. That doesn’t seem like he was on a job for them, does it?”

“Well, maybe they didn’t expect him to get caught,” said Hermione.

“It could be a frame-up!” Ron exclaimed excitedly. “The Ministry suspects he’s one of Dumbledore’s lot so - I dunno - they  _ lured _ him to the Ministry, and he wasn’t trying to get through a door at all! Maybe they’ve just made something up to get him!”

Hermione looked rather impressed. “Do you know, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that were true.”

“Well, at least we know now what had Riddle so pleased yesterday,” Harry said. “There’s one less of Dumbledore’s lot for him to worry about now.”

Hermione folded up the newspaper thoughtfully. When the others had finished eating she seemed to come out of a reverie and started talking about tackling their homework. Neville was happy to join her in getting the mountain of assignments they had to finish out of the way but Harry and Ron were unable to resist the lure of the Quidditch pitch on such a beautiful day. Leaving Godric with Neville, the two boys headed out to the Quidditch Pitch with their brooms.

The morning’s Quidditch practice went well, with Ron’s playing improving the longer they practiced. After lunch, they joined the rest of the team in the changing room for the real training session.

“All right, Ron?” said George, winking at him.

“Yeah,” said Ron, who had become quieter and quieter all the way down to the pitch.

“Ready to show us all up, Ickle Prefect?” said Fred, emerging tousle-haired from the neck of his Quidditch robes, a slightly malicious grin on his face.

“Shut up,” said Ron, stony-faced, pulling on his own team robes for the first time. They fitted him well considering they had been Oliver Wood’s, who was rather broader in the shoulder.

“Okay, everyone,” said Angelina, entering from the Captain’s office, already changed. “Let’s get to it; Alicia and Fred, if you can just bring the balls crate out for us. Oh, and there are a couple of people out there watching but I want you to just ignore them, all right?”

Something in her would-be casual voice made Harry think he might know who the uninvited spectators were, and sure enough, when they left the changing room for the bright sunlight of the pitch it was to a storm of catcalls and jeers from the Slytherin Quidditch team and assorted hangers-on, who were grouped halfway up the empty stands and whose voices echoed loudly around the stadium.

“What’s that Weasley’s riding?” Malfoy called in his sneering drawl. “Why would anyone put a Flying Charm on a moldy old log like that?”

Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy Parkinson guffawed and shrieked with laughter. Harry mounted his broom and kicked from the ground just ahead of Ron and flew over to hover in front of the Slytherins.

“Draco, Draco, Draco,” he said shaking his head sadly at the blond seeker. “I see you’ve forgotten your manners again,  _ and  _ you’re displaying a lamentable level of ignorance as well. Ron is flying a Cleansweep Eleven, the most recent broom in the Cleansweep series. It may not be the most expensive broom out there, but it’s a good broom with excellent specs. You really need to learn not to talk about things you don’t understand.”

Harry flew back to the team, leaving Draco scowling after him. Ron grinned at him.

“I love how you manage to leave Malfoy speechless every time,” Ron said as Harry flew into position beside him.

Angelina directed the team to spread out and then threw the Quaffle to Fred who passed to George, who passed to Harry, who passed to Ron, who was still grinning at Draco’s silent fury over Harry’s scolding. Ron caught the Quaffle and passed it on to Alicia, who passed it back to Harry, who passed to George. It was at that point that Draco decided to try again.

“Hey, Potter how’s your scar feeling?” called Draco. “Sure you don’t need a lie-down? It must be, what, a whole week since you were in the hospital wing, that’s a record for you, isn’t it?”

Harry laughed and called back, “I’m good, Draco. Hopefully, I can give the hospital wing a miss this year.”

Ron snorted, “Yeah, right. There’s no way you’re making it through a year without ending up in the hospital wing at some point.”

Harry glared at Ron but then had to quickly return his attention to the Quaffle that Angelina had reverse passed to him unexpectedly, catching it in the very tips of his fingers. Harry passed the Quaffle to Ron who lunged for it and just managed to catch it.

“All right,” called Angelina after a few more minutes of passing the Quaffle. “Fred, George, go and get your bats and a Bludger; Ron, get up to the goalposts, Harry, release the Snitch when I say so. We’re going to aim for Ron’s goal obviously.”

When they had all returned to the air and Angelina had blown her whistle, Harry released the Snitch, and Fred and George let fly the Bludger. Harry was focused more on his search for the Snitch than on the rest of the team so it caught him by surprise when Angelina blew her whistle to call a halt to the practice so that she could criticize Ron’s performance. The Slytherins were chanting “Gryffindor are losers” the whole time. Angelina ignored them but there was a certain rigidity about her seat on the broom as she restarted the practice. Fortunately, Harry spotted the Snitch a few minutes later, circling around the opposing goals, and swooped in to catch it. Holding the Snitch aloft Harry flew back to the rest of his team, passing the now silent Slytherins on the way.

Angelina blew her whistle for a short break when she noticed that Harry had the Snitch. Harry landed beside Ron who was muttering to himself, repeating Angelina’s earlier advice about how to protect all three hoops. He nudged the redhead and nodded at the Slytherins.

“I think they just realised who’s going to have the last laugh after we play them next.”

“No thanks to me,” said Ron morosely.

“Give yourself time, you just need to get used to working with the rest of the team. I mean you made some pretty impressive saves when we played over the summer,” Harry said encouragingly.

Before Ron could reply Angelina had blown her whistle again, and they mounted their brooms to get back into position. Just like that morning, the longer they played, the better Ron did, both at guarding the hoops and ignoring the jeers from the watching Slytherins. Eventually, Angelina decided to call a halt to the practice session and they headed to the change room.

“I thought you said that their new Keeper would be easily rattled?” the Slytherin team captain, Graham Montague, said to Draco once the Gryffindors were out of sight in the change room. “You said that you knew just how to get him off his game and keep him that way.”

Draco scowled. “It’s Potter’s fault. If he wasn’t around I could have had Weasley fumbling the ball every time it came near him.”

“Well, then you’re just going to have to try harder, aren’t you, Malfoy,” said Montague.

“Maybe we can do something about Potter, too, before the game,” Goyle said, cracking his knuckles.

Hermione looked up from her usual chair near the fire when Ron and Harry climbed through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room. “How was practice?” she asked cooly.

“It was alright,” Ron said, tired but cheerful, sinking into a chair beside Hermione. “I could have done without the Slytherin’s watching us, although it was almost worth it to see Harry scolding Draco again.”

Hermione frowned, “What were the Slytherins doing there?”

“Trying to throw us off your game, what else?” Harry said from the hearth, where he had joined Neville in watching Godric bask in the warmth from the fire. “But we showed them, didn’t we Ron?”

Ron shrugged. “Well, you did anyway,” he said before abruptly getting up from the chair. “Well, I’d better get started on my homework if I want to get through it all by tomorrow night,” he said and disappeared up the stairs to the boys' dorms. Hermione turned to Harry.

“Did Ron really do alright?” she asked.

“Of course he did,” Harry said loyally.

Hermione raised her eyebrows. “Ron doesn’t seem to think so,” she said.

Harry shrugged, “He had a shaky start, but he was doing a lot better by the end of practice. He’ll be brilliant by the time we have our first game.”

Ron spent the rest of the evening working on his homework but he still had a lot left to do on Sunday. Harry joined him for the morning, finishing up the work that had been assigned on Friday, before heading down to the dungeons with Neville for a tutoring session after lunch. With Harry’s help, Ron was just finishing up with the last of his work as the light faded from the sky and the common room emptied. That was when Hermione noticed Percy’s owl at the window.

“What’s wrong, Harry?” Sirius asked later that evening when Harry called him for their usual evening chat. “Did you have trouble getting your homework done for tomorrow?”

“No,” Harry said. “Apparently, Percy heard about Ron becoming a prefect and decided to write to congratulate him.”

“Oh, I see,” said Sirius with a grimace. “I take it he hasn’t changed his mind about the Ministry?”

Harry snorted, “He called Umbridge a delightful woman, if that answers your question. That reminds me. D’you know if there’s going to be anything about Dumbledore in the  _ Daily Prophet _ tomorrow? Percy seemed to think there was going to be -”

“I don’t know,” said Sirius. “I haven’t seen anyone from the Order all weekend, they’re all busy.”

“Dumbledore still hasn’t given you a mission yet?” Harry asked.

“Not yet, apparently, I’m still needed to babysit Headquarters, even when no one shows up,” Sirius said with a trace of bitterness.

“Well, I’m glad you’re not too busy,” Harry said quietly. “It’s nice to be able to talk to you every day like this.”

“You’d be alright,” Sirius said. “After all you’ve got your Dad there.”

“Yeah, but I can’t talk to him every day, especially now that Riddle is back, we have to be too careful that no one realizes that we actually like each other. Besides, you know more about what the Order’s been up to than anyone else, other than Dumbledore, and he’s definitely not willing to keep me in the loop.”

“I haven’t exactly been much help in figuring out what’s keeping Hagrid,” Sirius said.

“Maybe not, but it’s not like anyone else has any idea what’s going on with Hagrid either,” Harry replied. “He was ok when he got separated from Madam Maxime right? And that’s the last anyone’s heard of him.”

“That’s right,” said Sirius. “But there’s no reason to think he’s been hurt or anything … Hagrid’s tough, he'll be ok.” Noticing that Harry still looked worried, Sirius hurried to change the topic. “When’s your next Hogsmeade weekend? I was thinking that I could join you.”

Harry brightened. “That would be great! It’s the first weekend of October.”   
  


“I’ll see you then, Pup. You’d better get some sleep now, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Harry sleepily said good night to Sirius and settled down in his bed, Percy’s letter forgotten in his anticipation of the upcoming Hogsmeade weekend.


End file.
